Agricultural drainage is extensive across this region, and a great deal of it takes the form of open ditches, legal drains and drainage ways crossing private property. Vegetation grows in them, reduces their capacity, and owners want it out.
The complication is jurisdictional rather than technical. Many of these are regulated drains under a county drainage board, which carries easements, maintenance responsibilities and rules about what may be done and by whom.
That question comes before the clearing question, and getting it the wrong way round can be genuinely costly.
Find out what you are dealing with first
A private ditch on your own ground and a county-regulated drain look identical from the bank. The difference is legal and it is significant: regulated drains carry easements, the drainage board sets the rules, and maintenance may be its responsibility rather than yours.
The county surveyor's or drainage board's office can tell you whether a given ditch is regulated. That call costs nothing and is the correct first step.
What the vegetation is doing
Not all of it is a problem. Grass and herbaceous cover on a ditch bank holds the bank together; removing it entirely can accelerate erosion and put soil into the channel, which reduces capacity rather than improving it.
Woody growth is usually the actual target — trees and brush that obstruct flow, destabilise banks as they grow and fall, and make the channel impossible to maintain. Distinguishing between the two before clearing is the difference between improving a drain and damaging it.
Access along a wet corridor
Ditch banks are usually the lowest, wettest strip on a property, and machine access along them is limited by exactly the water the ditch is carrying. Work is often only practical in dry periods or from one side.
Where a machine can reach across from firm ground, that is generally preferable to travelling the bank itself, both for the bank and for the operator.
Timing
When to ask for estimates
- After establishing whether the drain is regulated and what is permitted.
- Ask for it by the running foot, since it is corridor work.
- Ask what happens to the material removed and where spoil is placed.
Send the project details when it is — one short form, written for independent contractors working your county, free and with no obligation.
On the walkthrough
Questions worth asking
- Have you checked whether this is a regulated drain?
- What vegetation are you removing and what are you leaving on the bank?
- Are you working from the bank or reaching from firm ground?
- Where does the spoil go?
Questions
Common questions on this
Can I clear the ditch on my own property?
Not necessarily, and this is the question to settle first. Many ditches here are regulated drains under a county drainage board, which carries easements and rules about what may be done and by whom — regardless of whose deed the ground is on. The county surveyor's or drainage board's office will tell you, and the call is free.
Should all the vegetation come off the bank?
No, and doing so can make things worse. Grass and herbaceous cover holds the bank together; strip it and you accelerate erosion and put soil into the channel, reducing capacity. The usual target is woody growth that obstructs flow and destabilises banks. A contractor who wants to take everything down to bare earth is not necessarily improving the drain.
Why can this only be done at certain times of year?
Because a ditch corridor is the lowest and wettest strip on the property, and it is carrying water. Machine access is limited to dry periods, and working a saturated bank destabilises it. Late summer through winter is usually the practical window here.
Keep planning
Related planning guides
- Regulated drains and drainage districtsA regulated drain runs through private property but is not privately controlled, and that distinction catches owners out constantly.
- Working on wet ground and seasonal bottomlandWet ground is a scheduling constraint, not an equipment problem, and treating it as the latter is how sites get ruined.
- Crossing a creek on your propertyA creek crossing is a permitting question and a structural question before it is a clearing question.
- Excavators: the machine that digs and liftsThe only common clearing machine that can pull material out of the ground rather than push it across the surface.
- Clearing on floodplain groundFloodplain status affects what you can do with cleared ground far more than it affects the clearing itself.
Everything else is in the planning workspace.
Get it quoted
Services this relates to
Evansville Mulching is a free matching service, not a contractor. Nothing on this page is a determination about your property — a contractor standing on the ground is the only person who can make one.
Covering 10 towns across the Evansville tri-state area, and all 14 services.