Slope & Erosion Control in Omaha, NE

Slope and erosion control in Omaha starts with the soil. The bluffs and rolling uplands around the city are loess, wind-laid silt and fine sand with little clay. Loess is known for standing in steep or even vertical faces for years while it is covered, and for washing badly once it is bare: even well-managed loess farmland can lose a lot of soil every year. A new walkout lot, a cut behind a retaining wall, a drainage swale between two houses or a ditch along an acreage drive can all lose inches of soil in a single summer thunderstorm. Our job is to cover that ground quickly and keep it covered until grass roots hold it.

Matching the cover to the slope

There is no one product for every bank. On gentle slopes, a standard hydroseed coat with tackifier holds well. As the grade gets steeper or longer, or water starts to concentrate, we step up:

• Heavier hydromulch rates for moderate slopes and the faces of berms.
• Bonded fiber matrix (BFM) hydraulic mulch, which forms a continuous mat when it cures, for steep banks where a blanket is hard to anchor or the surface is rough.
• Straw blankets (erosion control blankets made of straw) stapled over seed on slopes and in low-flow swales.
• Straw-coconut or coir blankets where water runs harder or the cover has to last longer.

We choose by the grade, the length of the slope, how much water comes from above, and how soon the area will see traffic or mowing.

Swales and drainage paths

Most erosion we see is not on the steep part of a yard but in the low line where water collects. A side-yard swale between two new homes, or the path a downspout takes across the lawn, carries more water than the surrounding slope. Seed in those lines needs a blanket, and sometimes the swale needs reshaping first so water spreads instead of cutting a channel. We look at where water comes from, not just where it leaves.

Omaha weather and timing

Eppley Airfield's 1991 to 2020 normals show more than four and a half inches of precipitation in each of May, June and August, and the humid summers bring frequent thunderstorms. Those are the months bare slopes fail. The cool-season seeding window Nebraska Extension recommends for eastern Nebraska runs August 15 to September 15, and that is still the best time to grow grass on a slope. If a bank cannot wait, we can blanket it in early summer and accept that the seed will need more watering to get through the heat.

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Erosion control services for builders and acreages

On construction sites, erosion control is part of the stormwater plan: stabilizing disturbed slopes is one of the practices that keeps sediment out of inlets and the Papillion Creek system. On rural acreages north and west of the city, it is often a road ditch, a pond dam face or a terrace that keeps slumping. The tools are the same; the scale is different. As erosion control contractors we work with builders, site contractors and homeowners, and we price blankets and mulch so you can compare them line by line.

Slope stabilization limits

Seed, mulch and blankets protect the surface. They do not stop a slope that is sliding because of water inside it, a wall that is failing, or a cut that is simply too steep for the soil. If we see slumping, tension cracks, seeps or a bulging wall, we will tell you that the fix is drainage or engineering first, and seeding second.

Native grass on banks

For long slopes that will not be mowed, such as the back of a lot facing a creek or the side of a pond, a native grass mix under a blanket can make more sense than turf. It is slower to establish, but once it takes it needs far less care. We can talk through that option during the site visit.

Keying in a blanket

A blanket is only as good as its top edge. If water gets under the upslope end, it lifts the whole run and carries seed and soil out the bottom. We bury the top of each roll in a small trench, staple it closed, overlap the rolls shingle-style so water flows over the seams rather than into them, and staple the body of the blanket at the spacing the maker calls for, closer on steep ground. In swales, rolls run in the direction of flow, with check slots where the channel is long. The seed and fertilizer go down before the blanket, not on top of it, so the seedlings come up through the fiber and root into the soil. That is slower than spraying mulch on a bank, but on a slope that has already failed once, it is the part of the job that keeps us from coming back.