Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Rural Living Concrete at grade creek crossing

Anyone ever built one? I have a creek crossing that has gotten deeper over the past 20 years. Every time we get a toad floater it chews the gravel bottom out deeper to the point that it stays 2ft deep or more long after it runs down.

I don’t want culverts or precast box culverts because it gets wild enough during a big flood to tear those out. I’m thinking just a concrete slab 10-12ft wide by 60-70 ft long.

Any other ideas?

A low water crossing? I've seen them, it should work. The bank depth would have to be right for that.

Yes same thing. Bank depth on one side is virtually level, maybe a foot of rise in 20 feet. The other side, which is where the channel mainly flows is more like one foot of rise in 3-4 feet. Not steep by any means. Had been a single lane dirt / gravel roadway since horse and buggy days.

The county will minimal maintenance grade it only after a very severe flood. Otherwise it’s up to the 4-5 landowners who use it to fix and maintain it. It has been a wet year and the ground is so saturated even an inch of rain will put the stream flow up in the cab of your truck. I’m not looking to fill the stream in or bridge it. I just want a solid bottom that won’t continue to get deeper. I’m ok with having to wait until after the rain runs off and down to get in or out. I just want something to be left there to drive on after it’s gone.

When I got kicked of my sister's farm years ago, the new tennit quit using the culvert I used, and put in a concrete bottom.

We hauled some hay through it a couple of years ago. It worked fine.

I'd wonder if the right size rocks would work?

Unless it’s school bus sized rock it will not stay. It gets pretty crazy there once every few years. I’ve seen whole cars filled with rock eventually get ripped from the bank and never seen again. The water has cut a channel to one side and it just keeps getting deeper on that side.

In Arkansas there are quite a few 'low water bridges'. Just cement across the river , but it has to be pretty thick to withstand the current during high water. These are on public roads.

You would have to take measures to be sure the concrete would not under mine?

We have several culverts on this farm, keeping them crossable is a on going thing.

That’s what I’m trying to figure out if it will work. I realize a large amount (thickness) of concrete will be necessary to create a mass heavy enough not to move. Along with rebar to hold it all together.

If it’s at existing grade and thick enough, maybe even sloped on the sides, I don’t think it would undermine. But I hate to figure out otherwise the hard way.

What machinery can you use? Any junk you could bury under the concreate for a dead man?

Probably limited to a rubber tire backhoe. But I’m afraid to excavate and loosen anything under the existing roadbed because it’s fragile enough as is. If I loosen it up it may really blow out next big flood.

If you don't want to pay an engineer, some times you just have to bull ahead and do the best you can.

I know what you mean. I saw the results of that during a 500 year flood about 8 - 9 years ago. Really nice I beam and concrete bridge a landowner had built was demolished and relocated a quarter mile or more downstream. Still laying there today useless. Water is an amazing force.

You are not thinking anything quite this elaborate?

Not quite, but something like one of these would be equivalent to the interstate highway system compared to current conditions.....

We have three culverts in a creek all side by side in a pasture, The water just keeps going around them. A failure for sure.

Not enough channel, of fall.

If culverts and concrete box culverts will wash out, it’s hard to picture a concrete slab not being undermined.

I think the biggest issue with the culverts and box culverts is the amount of debris (trees) that get caught on the upstream side. The weight of the water pushing against them just blows them out. My thinking on an at grade crossing is by the time the water gets deep enough to wash whole trees down stream it will be several feet above the crossing and they'll just slide on over. Sure, you'll have to wait until the water level recedes to get across, but at least there will be something left when it does go back to a normalish level.

What kind of traffic are you dealing with?

Not a low water crossing, one of the culverts on this farm.

This one worked out well, there was a rock pile nearby, and we had an excavator in to set it, and cover with rocks.

99.9% of the time a one ton with a loaded with cattle trailer would be the most weight. But if any of the 5 landowners chose to sell timber, then you know what that means.