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The way out of the paradox is to stop requiring a crew to walk and pin the entire surface. Engineered Wood Strand mulch is applied to the slope rather than installed on it — distributed across the surface without the systematic foot traffic and point loading that compaction depends on.
Compacted "pervious" soil behaves like pavement. Researchers measured infiltration on sandy soils across compaction levels using double-ring infiltrometers (ASTM D3385). The collapse is not subtle. ≈ 380–630 UNCOMPACTED FOREST SOIL (MM / HR) ≈ 8–175 AFTER CONSTRUCTION-STYLE COMPACTION (MM / HR) Once compacted, a soil that should soak up rain can take in water at rates approaching an impervious surface. And it happens easily: the same work found that crossing one spot just nine times with an ordinary pickup compacts sandy soil to a degree comparable to a dump truck or backhoe. An installation crew crosses most of a slope far more often than that. — Gregory et al., University of Florida. HOW FAST — FORESTRY & USFS RESEARCH Most of the damage is done in the first few passes. Decades of forest-operations research treat surface traffic as a controlled experiment in compaction. The findings are consistent and fast-acting.