Document a road runoff gully on the recharge divide.

How this work is done

A documented method, so this packet comes out the same whoever does it.

Steps

1. 1. From the public road shoulder, photograph a spot where road or shoulder runoff has concentrated into a channel and is cutting a gully into the upland surface below.
2. 2. Measure the gully's approximate depth and length with a tape measure.
3. 3. This documents concentrated road runoff converting infiltration into a gully on the recharge-upland divide, a mechanism specific to where a road intercepts sheet flow; state the highway landmark. Rain falling out of sight upstream, under a clear sky at the work site, can send a flash flood down a drainage or roadside ditch with little or no warning; check the current weather forecast and any flash flood watch or warning for the whole area before starting, and leave low ground immediately for higher ground if the water begins to rise or the sound of water changes.
4. 4. Record a ranked follow on note naming the site for a water bar diversion crew.

What counts as done

• Photo of the gully and the road runoff concentration point taken from the road shoulder
• Gully depth and length measurement with a tape measure visible in frame
• Confirmation that this work never entered, approached, descended into, climbed down, rappelled into, or located any cave, sinkhole opening, shaft, or crevice, and that no coordinate or description of such a feature was recorded or published, protecting both the worker and the bat colonies that roost in these features from white nose syndrome transmission risk; that no water sample was collected and nothing was placed into a fracture, sinkhole, or other recharge feature; that no organism, wild seed, or plant was collected or handled and no listed species was approached; that no precise location of an individual karst opening, nest, den, or roost was recorded or published; that the work stayed within public road right of way, public building grounds, or a consenting resident's own home and never crossed onto private ranch land; and that the county's remoteness, given Rocksprings as the only town of any size and unreliable cell coverage over much of the county, was accounted for with a stated plan, return time, and water carried.
• Ranked follow on note naming the site for a water bar diversion crew
• GPS waypoint of the roadside vantage

Proof is measured against these, not judged by taste.

The standard this serves

Watershed Health. A watershed is everything the land pours into a stream, and the stream keeps the record. The EPA's bioassessment method reads that record through the small creatures living in the gravel: mayflies and caddisflies mean clean water, only worms and midges mean trouble. Mastery looks like a person who can wade one riffle with a net and tell you how the whole valley is doing. That skill is built sample by sample. This packet is one of them: one site, one careful count, one entry in the long record of a stream.