Last month on the Mississippi, I noticed the silt fences too. But I'm not sure if they're as big a deal as people make them out to be. Fish have been dealing with natural silt for ages, and these fences might just be a band-aid. Plus, I've read that sometimes the fences themselves can cause problems if they're not maintained. So while they might help in the short term, I doubt it's a long-term fix. It feels like we're just putting up fences without solving the real issue, which is probably upstream erosion or something.
Noticed the same deal with bike lanes here, they put up plastic posts but never repave the roads. @nelson.wesley, your silt fence point hits home because it's another half fix. We end up with more problems when the quick solution fails.
Just saw a plastic post sticking out of a pothole like a sad birthday candle. Perfect symbol for these half fixes, like @nelson.wesley said about silt fences being band-aids. They're like birthday candles in a mud puddle, you know? The road crumbles around the new bike lane, so bikers just swerve into traffic anyway. Then the silt fence breaks and dumps a pile of muck no one planned for. We pay for these "solutions" that just make brand new problems.