COUNTY ASKS FOR STUDY OF HUBBLE EROSION

JACKSON -- Cape Girardeau County commissioners will ask the state to look for ways to solve erosion problems along Hubble Creek.

Commissioners voted Thursday to request a watershed plan from the Missouri Natural Resources Conservation Service.

The request will be made through the county's soil and water commission.

"We've got to get started some place, and we've started," said Associate Commissioner Joe Gambill.

The study, which will be done at no cost to the county, could start this winter, said Mike Wells, the assistant state conservationist for water resources with the NRCS, and could be completed within a year.

As part of the process, the commission will work with the soil and water district to appoint a local steering committee to oversee the study.

Requesting the study does not obligate the county to carry out or fund any of the suggested solutions, NRCS representatives and commissioners said.

Landowners along the Hubble and Williams creeks in the Dutchtown and Gordonville areas are losing land to erosion. If the problem isn't contained, other structures -- including county roads and bridges -- will eventually be endangered.

Sections of the St. Louis Iron Mountain Railroad were shut down because of erosion.

Railroad owners approached the commission in April to ask for help, and representatives of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Missouri Department of Conservation, the NRCS and other agencies toured the area in May.

Landowners and railroad officials have dumped rock and concrete in eroded areas along the creek to try and contain erosion.

Hubble Creek was dredged and channeled several years ago to help control flooding. The wider, straighter channel lets more water flow through the creek, causing erosion.

Whatever solution is found, said district conservationist Dave Owen, "we've still got to deal with the water that flows out of this watershed, whatever it does."

The NRCS will provide technical, engineering and planning assistance in performing the study, Wells said.

"The funding situation these days as you all know is in kind of a flux situation," he said. "Personally, I'd rather look at solutions to the problem and get a good idea of what's causing it to happen."

The study will include such things as the dynamics of the creek itself -- how much water there is, where it's coming from and where it's going -- and possible solutions for balancing flooding and erosions, Wells said.

Hubble Creek is trying to "re-form itself" into its old channel, he said, and land usage at the north end of the watershed has changed as more and more development has occurred, causing more water runoff.

Possible solutions may include detention ponds, a series of rock dams or grade stabilization along the channel, or a combination of those and other ideas, Wells said.

It may be necessary for communities in the watershed to establish some kind of stormwater detention policy for developers to follow to help control runoff, he said.