Erosion & Sediment Control in Rhodesdale, MD — Keep The Job Moving

When You Need This

The plan has a sediment control sheet on it and somebody has to put it in the ground. Or the job is already going and the inspector wrote it up — silt fence down, entrance tracking mud onto the road, bare ground that was supposed to be stabilized weeks ago. Work stops until it is fixed.

Sometimes there is no plan and it is just common sense. You stripped a lot and the first hard rain carried your topsoil into the ditch. Trucks are tracking mud out onto the county road and the neighbors are calling. Fresh fill is washing down a bank into the swale you just cut.

On the Eastern Shore this matters more than the flat ground makes it look. Bare soil with no slope still moves in sheets when the rain comes hard. The water table is high, so ground stays saturated and nothing soaks in. And a lot of work happens near tidal and floodplain ground along the Nanticoke, the Choptank and the Marshyhope, where the ditch you are sending water to goes straight to the river.

How Steve Does It

He reads the control sheet with the grading plan side by side, because the two have to agree. Then he walks the site and figures out how water actually moves across it — where it comes on, where it collects, where it leaves — and puts the controls where the water is, not just where they are easiest to install.

Silt fence goes in on the downhill side of disturbed ground and along the limit of disturbance. He trenches the bottom in and buries the fabric skirt instead of laying it on the surface, because fence with water running under it does nothing. Posts go on the tight spacing the plan calls for, driven on the downstream side, fabric stapled on the uphill face, ends turned uphill so runoff cannot walk around the last post. Joints get overlapped and wrapped, not butted.

The stabilized construction entrance goes in before the first load rolls on. He strips the topsoil, lays fabric, and builds up coarse stone at the depth and length the plan calls for, wide enough that a truck cannot dodge it, with the surface pitched so wash water goes back on site rather than out to the road. If it clogs with mud, it gets topped up or turned over, because a plugged entrance is the same as no entrance.

Then stabilization, which is what keeps inspections quiet. He gets topsoil back over the areas that are done, seeds and straws them, and does it in stages instead of waiting for the whole job to finish. Bare ground that has to sit gets temporary cover. Inlets get protected, swales and channels get lined where the plan calls for it, and stockpiles get ringed and seeded.

He keeps the controls up while the job runs — checking after storms, cleaning behind the fence when sediment builds up, resetting posts that got knocked, adding stone at the entrance. Then he pulls the controls once the ground is covered and the county releases them.

What It Costs in Rhodesdale

Linear feet of silt fence, and whether the ground can be trenched easily. The size and number of stabilized entrances, which are mostly a stone question. Acreage that has to be stabilized, plus topsoil, seed and straw. Inlet protection, swale lining and stockpile treatment when the plan calls for them. Then upkeep, which depends on how long the job runs and how much rain it takes. Fixing a written-up site costs more than doing it right at the start, because the work has to happen now instead of in order.

Estimates are free. Send the control sheet and Steve will price off it, and he will walk it with you before he starts.

Why Choose Marshy Hope

Steve Hackett owns the business and runs the machine. Fifteen years in the trade, six of them working for himself out of Rhodesdale. He carries a $1,000,000 general liability policy and will send the certificate to you or your builder before he starts. Estimates are free, and you hear back the same day or the next one. One crew handles it from dirt to concrete, so nothing gets dropped in the handoff.