Add this to the “I-don’t-get-why-this-is-funny” column. A writer from Colorado offering a ‘humerus’ column about a city that should have added beavers to its water-storage plan.

Does not seem silly to me at all.

HUMOR: Beavers, to the Rescue?

Last November, the voters in Pagosa Springs, Colorado turned down yet another chance to increase their taxes, to allow a local water district — the San Juan Water Conservancy District — to move ahead with a plan to build a new reservoir, north of downtown in a dry valley known as Dry Gulch. At one point, the reservoir had been priced at $357 million, but more recent estimates from SJWCD suggested a price of maybe $100 million, or even less. The District publicity mentioned a reservoir capable of storing around 11,000 acre-feet.

The tax increase requested by SJWCD would have allowed for a $2 million loan. I admit, I struggled with math back in high school, but it seems to me that a $2 million loan would have left the Water District a bit shy of the total needed.

Maybe the Water District should invest in beavers, instead?

A recent essay published on the Sierra Club Colorado Chapter website suggests that a typical beaver family is capable of building a pond that stores about 10 acre-feet of water — about 3.3 million gallons. Beavers are apparently willing to perform this service year after year, with absolutely no government subsidy — and without any need for a government bureaucracy to supervise their work. All a beaver asks for is a few saplings, now and then, to munch on.

See what I mean? What’s funny about that? It makes perfect sense.

If we were able to coax just 2,000 beaver families into relocate to Archuleta County (with a typical beaver family consisting of a husband, a wife, and four children) we would soon have 11,000 acre-feet of water storage at our disposal. Free of charge.

I’m certainly no expert on beavers, [Editors note: I really, really believe that] but my general impression is that they favor small government, private property rights, and a quiet, sparsely inhabited neighborhood surrounded by trees. Which is to say, they would fit right in with Pagosa Springs’ social culture.

The above-mentioned Sierra Club essay on beavers expressly mentions the “Colorado Water Plan,” assembled a couple of years ago under Governor John Hickenlooper’s watch. (You can read the plan at this website.)  The Water Plan doesn’t list any “authors” — at least, I couldn’t find any such list — but I get the impression that hundreds, maybe thousands, of citizens had input into the Plan, through the various “Basin Roundtables” scattered across our great state.

If you do a search for ‘beaver’ on the plan website, however, you will be sorely disappointed.

How could hundreds of intelligent citizens give input into the Colorado Water Plan… and not a single mention of our water-loving friend, the beaver?

I ask myself the same thing about California every dam day. But I’m not being funny or teasing the Sierra Club when I do it. I’m drought serious.

On behalf of Nature’s little water storage expert, I will go out on a limb and offer a possible reason why Governor Hickenlooper and his vast team of advisors utterly ignored this taxpayer-friendly rodent. It’s pretty simple, really. The Colorado Water Plan ignored everyone who questions massive government debt and expansive government bureaucracy. The beaver, as it turns out, is in good company, politically speaking.

If only beavers were allowed to vote, what a different world this would be.

Now that’s the truth! I know the author, Louis Cannon, fancies himself very droll with this article, but it couldn’t be more true if it tried. Not that I think beavers care about our troubles enough to vote, but for goodness sake they should be counted as an asset in every water plan in the west. And every time someone wants permission to trap one they should have to appeal to the local waterboard and indicate how they will personally compensate for the water storage and wildlife they remove if they are allowed to trap.

Sigh.

I at least want the loss of a beaver dam to REGISTER. Like it does in this article from Montana.

Destroying beaver dam stops flooding, impacts environment

Flooding in Helena almost immediately subsided in several areas of the valley after the county decided to dismantle a beaver dam. News of the destruction set fine with those affected by weeks of high water around their home.
However, our Bliss Zechman sat down with Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials to discuss how destroying a habitat can affect the surrounding ecosystem.

They provide an important ecological benefit in natural system. The problem is, our systems are not completely natural,” said Greg Lemon, Spokesperson for FWP.   Dams provide rearing habitats for small fish and they help promote wetland species. This natural process produces colder and cleaner water, which can benefit the stream miles down the line. However, problems occur when humans interfere.

Yes you fixed your little flooding problem but at what cost? And when will new beavers move in and do the same thing all over again? I wish this was the permanent template for every future beaver damage article.

A girl can dream, can’t she?