Fairground bids farewell to erosion

What is a county to do when its

What is a county to do when its fairground is eroding away? Mon

roe County, Ohio, went to sponsors

of the Buckeye Hills Resource Conservation and Development Project for help. Monroe County is one of five southeastern Ohio counties covered by the project.

Because the aim of RC&D projects is town-and-country economic development, the Monroe County Agricultural Society, locally known. as the Fair Board, believed it could get RC&D help to solve the serious. erosion problem at the 37-acre fairground.

Over the years the fairground had been enlarged by leveling sloping areas and bringing in fill where needed. Runoff dropping off the edge of the flattened areas formed gullies. Land slips were common. The annual cost of filling the gullies, repairing the slips, and regrading roads was estimated at $900.

The SCS district conservationist at Woodsfield, the Monroe County seat, showed the Fair Board how a planned water-disposal and erosioncontrol system would be nearly maintenance free. And the annual cost of these improvements would be less than the cost of maintenance without the improvements.

SCS helped the Fair Board work out a plan that included grassed waterways, diversions, drop inlets, tile drains, seeding, and improvement of existing vegetation to move runoff safely off the fairground. About $2,400 in RC&D funds were allocated to this project.

The project was completed in 1969, but it was only the beginning. The Monroe County Commissioners and the County Engineer's Department donated material for an improved entrance and

roadways at the fairground. They also provided a grader, end-loader, and trucks to help in reshaping the eroded areas, moving fill material, and constructing grassed waterways and diversions. Backhoes provided by the county and Woods field were used to install drainage measures.

Flowers, shrubs, and trees were planted to further beautify the area. Sixteen native flowering dogwood trees were given to the fairground beautification program. These trees were planted by the individual board members along the approach to the main building.

An unused part of the grounds is to be converted into a picnic area so more people can enjoy the fairground. A new identification sign has been put up at the main gate. Many of the buildings have been painted, and some have been remodeled inside. Even the concession stands have been painted and improved. The Coulson Building was painted by the 4-H junior leaders of the county.

At the last annual county fair attendance was larger than ever. There were more and better exhibits at the fair than ever before. More people came from greater distances than ever to see the new look and the new fair.

The fairground is located just outside Woodsfield and is used for many activities besides the annual fair. Family reunions, picnics, racehorse training, a county Fourth of July celebration, baseball games, and many meetings are held at the fairground, making it a community asset.-KARL H. REINHARDT, assistant area conservationist, SCS, Athens, Ohio, and NEAL C. BEERY, district conservationist, SCS, Woodsfield, Ohio.

Grass rescues Grass seeding and mulching seem

unrelated to building a railroad, par

rail research ticularly one having a curve, bank,

spiral, and base for high-speed, futuristic, linear-induction powered trains.

Because of soil conditions at the Department of Transportation's High Speed Rail Test Site near Pueblo, Colo., officials foresaw the possibility of a severe erosion problem. They feared that the 2-foot high "reaction rail" between the tracks for powering the experimental trains would act like a snow fence and stop the soil that drifted across the track.

Soon after engineers started surveying the site, John Hamernick, regional landscape architect for the Denver office of the Federal Highway Association, contacted the Turkey Creek Soil Conservation District to get help in combating erosion by establishing grass on soils bared by construction.

The soils on nearly half of the DOT test site are deep, dunelike, fine sandy soils of the Valent series. They are unstable and highly susceptible to wind erosion. The rest of the area has deep, gently undulating, moderately sandy soils of the Vona series and deep, nearly level sandy clay loam soils of the Olney series.

SCS personnel studied soil maps of the area, consulted specialists at the SCS Plant Materials Center in Los Lunas, New Mex., and then tailored seeding, fertilizing, and seedbed recommendations to each kind of soil that the track would cover in its 22.4-mile oval path. In fact, the written recommendations became the contract specifications for treatment of the soils disturbed and bared by construction.

The grass was seeded with a grain drill especially modified for seedings of this type. Only certified seed was used. Native hay was spread over the seeded area and crimped 2 or 3 inches into the soil with a disk-type implement.

The effectiveness of the hay mulch was proved on a day when the prime contractor chose to shut down because winds in excess of 60 miles an hour were causing unusual hazards to workers. "I expected to see that ground swept clean the next morning," said Don Taylor, project engineer. But the crimped-in mulch held and kept the soil in place almost as well as growing plants.

According to Charles Miley, resident engineer on the DOT project, about 1,000 acres will eventually be seeded. The success of the seeding, of course, will depend on the moisture available.-Roy J. LARSEN, soil scientist, SCS, Pueblo, Colo. ♦

BLM and SCS continue interagency planning

Cattle and sheep ranchers who opland should receive more timely and erate on both federal and private efficient help from federal agencies

as a result of a new Soil Conservation Service-Bureau of Land Management agreement.

Boyd L. Rasmussen, director of Interior's Bureau of Land Management, and Kenneth E. Grant, administrator of Agriculture's Soil Conservation Service, announced that they have signed an agreement calling for improved coordination. between BLM's grazing allotment planning and SCS's ranch unit planning. The new agreement updates and revises planning procedures for a program of interagency cooperation that began in 1965.

Purpose of the agreement is to give more help to conservation district cooperators in resource management and improvement, reduce procedural details, provide new program-planning guidelines, and place more agency responsibility at the state and local levels.

BLM administers grazing use on more than 170 million acres of public land throughout the western states. The Soil Conservation Service gives technical help to private landowners in planning conservation programs on their land in 3,000 conservation districts across the nation. The agreement makes it possible for the two agencies to coordinate programs in areas of mutual interest.

Soil maps lead to right decisions

Maps showing soil limitations are an invaluable aid in town-and-country invaluable aid in town-and-country planning. Since 1964, Adams County, Colorado, has made extensive use of such maps in making land use decisions.

In 1964, Adams County Commissioners requested help from the West Adams Soil Conservation District in developing interpretative maps showing soil limitations for such uses as light industry, house sites, septic-tank absorption fields, sewage lagoons, roads and streets, gravel and sand, and agriculture.

Under the guidance of an SCS soil scientist, draftsmen in the county planning office prepared nine maps based on the Adams County soil survey. Each map covers one township at a scale of 4 inches to

Damage to houses can be avoided if the builder checks the soils before he builds.

the mile. Seven color interpretive maps were made of each township showing three degrees of soil limitation for seven different land uses.

Because the maps are on a plastic mylar base, copies can be made easily and inexpensively, making soil interpretations readily available to anyone needing this kind of information.

Roman V. Bockus, Director of Planning in Adams County, believes that some developers in the county would not have made the mistakes they did if these maps had been available several years ago. He says, "In some areas, badly cracked basements, nonfunctioning septic-tank sewage disposal systems, and roadways needing almost constant repair are a major headache to owners, developers, and planners.-CHARLES DAVIES, district conservationist (retired), SCS, Brighton, Colo., and HARRY FUKAYE, president, West Adams Soil Conservation District.

SCS serves faraway places

Imagine a country the size of FlorMexico, and has the climate of ida, that looks like western New

Southern California. That's Tunisia.

Imagine a soil scientist who comes from the state of Washington, has 35 years of experience with the Soil Conservation Service, and speaks some Arabic. That's Sanford (Sandy) Anderson.

Sandy, who retired in May after 71⁄2 years in Algeria and Tunisia, was the "longest abroad" employee in SCS. For the last 51⁄2 years he worked in Tunisia, first on the Oued Marguellil Watershed Project and later on a program to increase the country's wheat production.

Oued Marguellil is an area in central Tunisia that averages less than 12 inches of rain annually, most of which falls in torrential downpours in winter. These cause both floods and soil erosion. More than half of the almost 400,000-acre watershed is potential rangeland, but overuse of natural vegetation makes much of the land vulnerable to severe erosion.

The Oued Marguellil Pilot Watershed Project, begun in 1962, provides both flood control and a conservation plan for the area's cropland and rangeland. The plan calls for extensive application of such land-treatment measures as terraces, diversions, and waterways and the re-establishment of grass and other pasture-improvement measures.

Eighteen ponds have been built to supply local people and their livestock with water, and a 100-acre seed-production center is part of the project.

Twenty-three SCS people worked on the project at different times, but it is now run entirely by Tunisians.

The Oued Marguellil area experienced a 500-year frequency storm in September 1969, and, according to Anderson, most of the structural

work in the watershed project held. Many project ponds are located where they can help reduce streamchannel erosion by preventing overfalls from working their way into upland crop areas. Each pond also has a sediment pool to reduce silt damage to productive bottom lands.

Anderson worked 21⁄2 years on the program to increase Tunisia's wheat production. He reports that average wheat production in that country has been around 5 quintals per hectare (71⁄2 bushels per acre). In the past 3 years, some demonstration plots have produced up to 70 quintals of wheat per hectare (103 bushels per acre), and Tunisian farmers working a total of 50,000 hectares of their own land have produced an impressive 17 to 20 quintals per hectare (25 to 30 bushels per acre). The increase, claims Anderson, comes from new varieties, correct amounts of fertilizer, and improved cultivation methods.-CAROLYN JOHNSTON, Information Division, SCS, Washington, D.C.