Messing With the Hydrological Constant

We just lost the moat on the east side.

Instead of trenching the area scraped earlier this week, a guy with a combination front loader/back grader dumped large piles of dirt over the grassless swath and proceeded to push at around for two hours this morning effectively filling in and leveling our swale.

Of course, since that side of the road had been a 10-15 degree slope before, it was obvious it would have to be either leveled up or down before any sidewalk could go in, but I wonder what this infill is going to do to our run-off during the rainy season. The house is on a slight rise and we have no basement/cellar so I can't imagine anything disastrous, but I can foresee large areas of long-term squishyness below the live oak making it difficult to mow during the half year when mowing is necessary. Either that or everything will flow into the southside moat which already backs up by the driveway because the town stopped its swale clearing and enhancement program at the edge of our property last year. (Neighbor Mike's ditch was cleared and deepened as was everyone else's down that way toward the canal. We don't know why they stopped short of us.)

Now that the planned path has been brought up to street level and graded, there's still a slight bit of trenching to do. The directional guide forms are in place right up to the north edge of our property although the cross forms are not, yet, and they appear to be lower than the new ground level built today.

The loader driver is still the first, and only, worker I've seen so far. I went outside to see the results of his labors and we waved to each other. Nothing (except the sawhorses) has yet crossed the street onto Neighbor Dan's place.