Riprap

[William Hupy]

I don’t know if this is strictly a local word, but it is timely with lake levels rising and home owners concerned about fending off flooding basements and yards. It apparently comes from a nautical term meaning rippling water caused by elevated land.

[Slava]

As I understand it, this is the jumbled junk dumped along the shoreline to 'reclaim' land area. With soil on top it looks nice, but isn't particularly the greatest thing to build on, which we tend to forget and then get annoyed when nature takes its course and makes the buildings fall down go boom.