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As resident owners, members of the MSC are responsible for keeping public sidewalks around our homes shoveled for safe pedestrian use. Significant management time can be consumed clearing snow from our parking lots and paths. Remaining iced path problems are not on the public sidewalks, but can pose a hazard to us residents..
When melt water refreezes over paths it creates dangerous sheet ice where someone may get hurt. Deicing substances, merely reduce the temperature at which ice and snow melt. Salt deicers are bad for the soil, and are responsible for impairment of many lakes around the twin cities. Departments of transportation and ice removal professionals take increasing care to apply minimal salt for maximum effect using spray solutions etc. Where deicing salt can be avoided, it should be.
Water ponds on our paths because the grass sod has built up over time to a level higher than the concrete.[1] By lowering the soil adjacent to concrete paths and providing areas where vegetation maintains openings where water can filter into the soil before it freezes solid, we can prevent the need to remove ice routinely from our paths. This means safer paths as we hurry to, or from, home. This would free our, and our management's, time for improvement projects while eliminating the need to salt areas. Doing this involves the work of moving a lot of dirt.
The worst snow and ice situation among the S cluster of houses occurs by the steps from the parking lot. The scale and slopes involved require more than gardening tools. Unless we install covered stairs up the hill from the car lot to reach E House, vigilant shoveling must continue. One huge project on our list is redesigning the S car lot to better accommodate cars, runoff water infiltration, and plowed snow. This project includes a level entrance from the car lot to K-House basement, and using soil excavated from the S lot to properly slope the N. car lot.
Gardening efforts can resolve most ice and drainage issues around the N pair of houses. Pictured to the right, a frozen melt-water stream in the shade between L & M houses. Water now drains off the path at the front of M house, but onto the path toward the back of M house. path slopes away from the house.Planting taller spring flood tolerant vegetation in a yet lower area between the houses, may increase infiltration of the pond that already forms there by penetrating ice lenses that form on the pond. Lowering soil to below the path along the path length will speed runoff from the path. Ultimately, a small bridge to allow ice/water flow away from M-House beneath a safe foot path may be needed. A gutter channels water to one point on the path, but melt water still spreads over the path.
The path between L & M houses down slope of the ice pond area complicates drainage. A terrace, is needed to prevent runoff from the ice pond from flowing over the L-M path as show on the left. We lowered some soil on the downhill side of the L-M path in 2010. This is a temporary and partial fix, since water and soil flow over the path. The proposed L-M terrace might prevent this, or drain tile under this path may be needed to speed drainage of infiltrating water before a pond downhill of the terrace flows again over this path.Installing gutters on the W side of L house will help collect rainwater in barrels for garden use, and simplify directing L-roof runoff away from the L-M path being flooded. However, this diverted water adds to the ponding water from M house, and thus the need for facilitated drainage under the L-M path.A small garden edge terrace of 4" has already reduced ice formation on the upper half of the path sloping down to the car lot (lower right picture). However, the car lot itself must drain to prevent ice at the bottom of the path. Gutters along the W side of L-House will greatly reduce the tendency for this situation. However the BOD has other priorities. All the situations above are likely to occur this winter.Two drainage to local infiltration demonstrations were implemented 2009. One is the $20 rain garden that accepts all runoff that drains to it from the N. Parking lot. Main House Coordinator, Nirab, described the other as a small "crater" beside the bath behind Main House. Melt water now runs off the path into the "crater" before forming sheet ice at the back door of M-House. Preventing sheet ice in front of M-House requires moving more than a cubic yard of soil. This will be done when expanding a vegetable garden in 2011. When N. car lot is repair
[1] Concrete can also sink if denser than surrounding soil, but the expansion of roots and the accumulation of air-born dust that settle and stay preferentially among a carpet of plant shoots form new accumulating topsoil over time.
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