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southern MN | Open ditches all around me, way too many miles and acres of flow to fit in a county main tile. Culverts under roads are 8 foot, and I’ve seen them run full several times.
A county over, my relatives are on a shorter county drainage system, all tile. It was set up almost a century ago. A branch goes to every landowner, up to them to hook on. I believe the head of it is 6 inch tile, it exits into a creek with I think 42 inch tile?
It’s really nice to not have open ditches to work around, lose land to.
But, it seems designed to handle about 1/3 coefficient if not 1/4 flow rate, modern systems handle 1/2, so in wet years it ends up very backed up. As you say everyone adds more tile, and that main can only handle so and so much flow.
As the 80-90 year old tile system starts failing, I don’t know what will happen. It is extremely expensive to replace 40+ inch tile, and as it’s undersized as it is I see at best an open ditch replacing most of it. Some of those big 40+ inch tile is more than 20 feet deep through the ridges.
And as always, nearly any drainage system will have its share of arguments and inequalities and so forth. It’s the nature of cooperative endeavors at that scale…..
Paul | |
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County mains for tile.
