Beaver dam

Last Fall I told Chris where the beaver dam was that was flooding the field he rented and was harvesting.  He didn't do anything about it.  Last week the 'lake' got even larger.  Today I put waders on and checked it out.  In addition to the dam the beaver plugged the culvert that makes a bridge over the creek.  The culvert makes a higher dam.  In addition the beavers started to extend the dam on the north side where the water flows around the culvert.  I removed the north side dam extension.  The culvert is completely underwater on the upstream side.  The downstream side only has water that flows around the culvert dam.  It is too dangerous to go in the culvert to try to remove the dam.

A few hundred yards downstream is the original beaver dam, the one that floods the field.  The dam was impressive.  Mud and branches.  I didn't see any water flowing through the dam.  The dam is higher than the creek's banks.  The beavers tried to extend the dam on each side of the creek once the creek overflowed the banks.  But that proved to much of an area to dam. (I think that is why the beavers then moved upstream and dammed the culvert.)   I removed much of the lower dam.  The creek is now back in its banks.   At sundown water was still flowing from the fields back into the creek.  Now to see how long it will be before the beavers rebuild the dam.  Since they still have their culvert dam they may not rebuild the lower dam.

Downstream of the lower beaver dam before the dam removal.