What's up with that? Old tires spotted along Salmon Creek
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
The other day, we were taking a stroll off the paved portion of the Salmon Creek Greenway trail to get a closer look at Salmon Creek between Klineline Pond and the Salmon Creek Sports Complex when we noticed a number of old tires half-buried in the dirt. Is that supposed to be part of some stream stabilization program, or is it just some old trash?
— Mark, North Salmon Creek
At first, Clark County Public Works officials didn’t know what we were talking about.
“None of our folks have ever seen them before,” public works spokesman Jim Gladson said.
But after a few maintenance workers walked the trail last week, they spotted between 20 to 30 tires along Salmon Creek. Some were buried beneath dirt. Some were showing along the bank. Some had dropped into the creek.
Gladson said maintenance workers believe the tires were placed there at least 30 years ago as retaining walls to stabilize the bank. Water eroded the bank so that some tires were no longer holding the land up. But many are still doing the job that was intended.
Nowadays, banks are supported by restoring the vegetation — planting trees to create a root system that stabilizes banks.
Now public works officials are scratching their heads. They don’t know what to do, and it’s not as though the tires are adversely impacting the environment.
“We are going to investigate whether we’re going to remove them or leave them as they are,” Gladson said.
— Laura McVicker
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