Arkansas Canoe Club Forums

I have had to recently exhume 18 post from a garden due to an eighty five foot Red Oak that did not make it through the last two summers and crashed upon them. These were brought to the surface by hydraulic measures. Sixty pound bags of Quickrette were used to place them. Is it a sin to put the concrete waste in a creek bed large enough to easily transport the remains and distribute them as ordinary sediment?

Ethically yours-
Jungle Boater

I'd call concrete in a stream garbage, and not ordinary sediment. It might be a mortal sin to place it there, if I understand the situation correctly.

Maybe they could be used strategically to control erosion....

When placed in stream, stream bed, or stream bank, to become sediment or bed load concrete is garbage for sure.

When used strategically to control erosion, especially if a structure is in danger of slipping into stream without protection it is not quite garbage. Problem with most concrete is that it has rebar in it, and it is not very dense meaning it can be moved fairly easy by large flows. More often than not, loose concrete chunks fail to do the job but I have seen some that have stood the test of time.

Occasionally the concrete is legal to use for bank stabilization, and special types of it are always legal to use though not preferred by most conservation pro's due to risk of failure and likelihood to become river trash.

Wild and scenic, wilderness areas, and extraordinary resource water designations up the anty against permissible use because the aesthetic value of those waterways is part of the reason they are supposed to be protected. Still yet it would be tempting to strategically use in water way for restoration/conservation - purpose especially if done correctly and the concrete was not even visible to the human eye. Much like putting into a landfill, except actually serving a purpose rather than just taking up space.

I wonder what the best use for old and large concrete chunks is so that they can be repurposed for something beneficial? Ideas anyone?

In many of our larger urban areas ,east and west coasts, used concrete (sans rebar) is recycled, crushed and sold as either as aggregate or backfill for things like french drains.

I can't imagine there is a large enough demand here in Arkansas, especially when there is so much "free" gravel in the local streams. Sarcasm

kru

Probably somebody somewhere would welcome the concrete as material for an area that is being filled in order to bring it up to level with the surrounding surface area.

In other words bury it if possible.