Big Gulch Sanitary Sewer Reconstruction Project
A Brief Historical Overview

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Meanwhile…

Over the next several years, all of the land adjacent to Big Gulch was built out with residential development, which consumed the large natural open areas bordering the gulch. This building resulted in the creation of very large amounts of hard surface areas, such as streets, roofs, driveways, and sidewalks. This is evidenced by comparing the two photos, pre-development in 1967 and post-development in 2009.

Pre Development 1967	Post Development 2009

These hard surface areas do not allow stormwater to percolate into the ground. Instead, they cause the stormwater to run off into catch basins, across lawns, into uncontrolled pipes, and directly into the Big Gulch drainage basin.

All of this uncontrolled stormwater flow added to the natural flows already in the gulch. So as these adjacent areas were developed, the overland flows increased the stormwater flowing down Big Gulch Creek.

It is important to realize that while much of this development was happening in the Big Gulch drainage basin, stormwater control regulations, as we know them today, still had not been developed. There were no water detention systems constructed and stormwater was simply discharged over the edge into Big Gulch Creek.

Also during this time, Mother Nature reestablished the natural brush and tree growth that had been removed during the initial construction of the pipelines down the gulch. This new growth continued unabated and resulted in preventing access to the sewer pipelines by personnel and equipment.

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