Ditch and canal cleaning in Ellensburg and Kittitas County

This valley runs on moved water. Ditches, laterals and head ditches carry it from the canal to the field, and every one of them silts in, sloughs off the bank and grows over a little more each season. Sooner or later the water stops getting to the end of the run, or it gets out somewhere you did not want it.

We clean them out with an excavator: pull the silt and the growth, cast the spoils back as a berm or load them out, reshape the section so the sides hold instead of sloughing straight back in, and reset the grade so the water keeps moving rather than ponding and soaking away halfway down.

The window matters more here than on almost any other job we do. The work happens when the water is off, which in the Kittitas Valley is the back half of the year, and the best time to call is well before everybody else calls. A ditch booked in October gets cleaned properly. A ditch called in on the week the water comes back gets whatever can be done in a hurry.

We also clean and replace plugged culverts, repair banks after a washout, and open up access at headgates and crossings so the ditch can actually be maintained next time.