The Royal Oak Municipal Drain 2016 was a project initiated under the Drainage Act to improve the condition of an open channel of over nine kilometers in length.  

 

With a watershed area of over 1,200 Hectares (over 3,050 acres), the project involved nearly 70 individual landowners and 12 roads.  Maintenance was last carried out nearly 48 years ago, resulting in the deterioration of the existing channel to a very poor state of repair which was experiencing severe levels of erosion throughout most of the length of the channel.  

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Some portions of the Royal Oak Creek provide areas of excellent fish habitat including highly vegetated areas; pool-riffle sequences; and natural nested channel cross sections.  With this in mind, a design was prepared to reconstruct segments of the channel to provide a long lasting and economical solution which protects or improves positive natural features, while providing landowners with a stable and resilient channel, resistant to severe levels of erosion.

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The proposed work included nearly two kilometers of reconstruction with a nested channel cross section; approximately 5.5 kilometers of a conventional ditch cross section, the installation of eight farm crossings, and two road crossings, and the use of over 2,250 m2 of flexamat at various locations for bank repair.