Culpeper County, like Loudoun, has many miles of unpaved rural roads and driveways.  In January the Culpeper Soil and Water Conservation District published the Dirt and Gravel Road Best Management Practice Guide: A Landowner’s Handbook to Building and Maintaining Private Roadways. Funding for the handbook came from the Chesapeake Bay Restoration Fund.

From the guide’s introduction:

“Over time many roads and driveways deteriorate for a variety of reasons: poor construction, improper maintenance, excessive weather events, heavy traffic loads, and others. In addition to the high and frequent repair costs, many of these roads and roadside ditches drain directly into our waterways. The transport of both sediment and gravel into stream channels has a destructive impact to the stream ecosystem resulting in the smothering of aquatic habitat and reduction of the channel’s capacity to carry water. Sedimentation of the channel causes increased frequency of flooding and streambank erosion. Competent construction and maintenance of dirt and gravel roads can save the landowner money and better protect local waterways.

The goal of this BMP guide is to help you plan and manage dirt and gravel roads to minimize the environmental impacts of uncontrolled runoff on local waterways. Our objective is to provide landowners with low cost solutions to common problems associated with building and maintaining dirt and gravel roads.”

You can download a copy of the guide here.