bank run?

[treeman82]

Hey guys, I just wanted to confirm my thoughts here. A customer of mine just had the foundation dug for an addition to his house. They excavated about 4 inches of top soil and then went down to about 4 feet in depth with bank run. Overall somewhere around 110 cubic yards came out of the ground. They needed somewhere to put the soil so they wound up spreading it out on the ground of a wooded area right there. The wooded area apparently got a coating of bank run somewhere between 5 and 10 inches in depth Now some parts of this area got a good coating of chips during the summer. The only trees left after we cleared out the saplings were locusts, cherries, elms, and maples. All those trees are larger and are relatively healthy. I am thinking that these trees are all going to die because of grade change and suffocation. Is my train of thought here wrong? I figure it should take anywhere between 5 and 10 years for the trees to die out completely, if not sooner. Any thoughts from you guys?

 

[Rob Murphy]

By Bank Run are you talking a heavy clay? If so and it is only as deep as you say I think that it might be just survival as far as aeration ( depends on the clay density). The grade changes and clay density would affect water availability which I would see in this case as the major concern .Times frames for decline are hard to judge as there are so many factors that can affect it . Its a case of watch this space!!!

 

[treeman82]

Actually I am being told that this bank run is made up of course sand and gravel. So what do you guys think?

 

[ArborView]

Bank run is a mixture of sand and gravel, at least as far as I am aware of. It packs down really hard after time. This is what I put on my driveway after excavating it. The driveway is pretty steep and after it gets wet a few times and is driven over, it packs down hard enough that it doesn't wash.
I would think that adding 5-10" of any kind of fill wouldn't be too healthy for the wooded area you mentioned.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

Add to this that the stuff was put there with heavy equipment and graded out. Probibly significant loss of soil porosity (is that a wod? ) I would think that the locust will root adventicously into it and probibly gte girdles. There will be a highr incidance of root rot...

Just because it is a gravel does not mean it will not have bad effects. The biggest problem is that they had laoders running around in there.