Thoughts to Consider: Erosion In My Back Yard

The Conodoguinet Creek Flows through my backyard. I live in Pine Brook of Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. I have been a resident of the neighborhood my whole life. (20 years) I use to live across the street from the creek, we then moved so we could have to creek out of our back door. Growing up so closet o the water, as a child i spent almost everyday in the summer catching turtles, crayfish, catfish, and sunfish. We had created all sorts of tricks to catching them as well. My brothers and I would snorkel to sneak up on the sun bathing turtles, and put long tubes in the water for the fish to hide in. The tubes were the easiest way to catch the fish because all we had to do was put the net at one end and lift up the other, dumping all the critters in our net. When we moved, we realized the creek had created a slight problem since we moved where there was a bend in the windy Condoguinet, erosion. Being located on the outter rim of a bend in the creek caused the flow to be quicker in our backyard. The water had been slowly eating a way at the dirt depositing it else where. When I would walk to the edge of the grass there was a drop off of four feet and in some areas there were wholes under what i thought was solid ground.

To fix the problem we slowly started to fill in the missing land mass with heavy matter, such as rock's, cement we had removed from our basement, and composite from the creek itself, which consistent of small pebbles, mud, and shells. Over the past ten years of living in my current house we have completely changed the lands form in our back year from in-caving dirt to a beach of small pebbles. We had collected so many rocks and creek deposit it refill our land that we have added six feet to our yard as well as built our own small island off shore. Allowing the creek to continue eating our land away over the last ten years could have caused us to loose a lot of land. Close to the six feet we added would have been eroded away leaving us with a very small back yard. Many of my neighbors have had boulders added to the shore line to stop their erosion. However we wanted a more accessible way of getting in the water. Since we have moved in we have added a dock, and modified our canoe for our multiple days of creek play in the summer. My father added a small motor to the back of our canoe for quick travel and fun. I've looked out the window and have seen him doing donuts in the middle of the creek. I have a lot of friends that live across the creek from my house, and if I want to drive to their house's it takes me 15 minutes. If I hope in the canoe in any season of the year I can get to there house's in less then 5 minuets, save gas, and be safe. I am very glad we moved across the street. I love having the water at my disposal. We also added a sub-pump addition to the creek, so we can water all our plants with mineral enriched creek water. Erosion could have prevented my family from many of its time passing activities, as well as created extra problems when the creek floods since the water would be closer and closer to our house and basement every year. The fallowing are some photos of my family and I enjoying the creek.