Back when Martinez was in the throws of whether to save our beavers or not, one of our biggest winning arguments came in the form of the Sierra Club: the head of the Wildlife Committee of the Sierra Club to be precise. As I was to learn it was highly unusual for the powerful advocacy group to take a stand on behalf of wildlife at the time. The major push for this came from two sources. Columnist Gary Bogue, who was a highly respected member, and Terri Preston, who was the head of the Wildlife Committee and wanted to push wildlife more into their view. As I understood it the Sierra Club preferred to focus their resources on saving lands and resisting degradation rather than specifically defending species that depended on those lands.
It was December 2007 when I received a very unexpected call at the office. Terry had negotiated time for the beaver issue to be discussed at the local chapter meeting, and if I could be there that evening it would help. I remember shuffling some patients around so I could have the night free and driving to Berkeley in a bit of a panic having never done anything like that before.
The meeting was in an older shabby office space on San Pablo Avenue and I had hunt hard for parking among the homeless. I remember Gary was there, although I didn’t know him then and only recognized hm from his photo in the paper. Terry was very reassuring and said quietly what she hoped I could focus on. And then the, to my surprise, the board asked my thoughts and talked about the Martinez Beavers, whether they were good for the environment, and whether they should risk annoying anyone to get involved.
It was so early in the process that I didn’t know much about the research or the stakes. I had barely started my time on the beaver subcommittee and I hadn’t been the one to reach out to them in the first place. I just knew the beavers mattered to me and to the community, had read a few articles about their value, so I gave it my best shot. The positive response I received turned soon into a letter of support.
It was a big deal when they released this.
Sierra Club Beaver Resolut.. - Copy - CopyAll this comes to mind this morning when I read over one of the articles Fran Recht sent me discussed in the hydrology film released yesterday. Apparently the Sierra Club in Colorado has some ideas about beavers too.
Water storage and the American Beaver, Castor Canadensis – A solution to Colorado’s aquatic resources challenges
The American beaver, a nuisance to some and an afterthought to others, may in fact be Colorado’s most effective tool to improve watershed health and regulate the state’s water supply.
According to The Lands Council (Spokane, WA; 2010), in their study conducted in Eastern Washington State on water storage by the beaver, they estimate that 10 acre-feet (ca. 3.26 million gallons) of water storage can be attributed to a single beaver due to its dam-building prowess. According to the authors, this is a conservative estimate of the amount of surface water and groundwater water held back by the average beaver included in their study. If this is an accurate figure, then it would take about 40-million beavers to store the equivalent amount of water that the entire United States used for all sectors – public and domestic supply, irrigation, livestock, aquiculture, self-supplied industrial, mining, and thermoelectric power – in the year 2010 (129.6 trillion gallons; USGS.)
The beaver is largely absent from Colorado’s discussion on water issues. These statistics alone show that beavers should be central to the state’s plans going forward.
According to The Lands Council (Spokane, WA; 2010), in their study conducted in Eastern Washington State on water storage by the beaver, they estimate that 10 acre-feet (ca. 3.26 million gallons) of water storage can be attributed to a single beaver due to its dam-building prowess. which include beaver dam analogs that mimic natural beaver dams, should not be overlooked (Pollock, 2015.) Potentially, the easiest, cheapest way to accomplish this end is to allow nature to regenerate where practicable to its previous state with the mighty ecosystem engineer, the American beaver, breaking the trail. In fact, restoring and protecting the beaver population is consistent with the intent of the Colorado Water Plan – store water, conserve aquatic resources, and close the approaching water supply gap – and goes further to deliberately enhance ecosystem productivity and resilience.
Now those are very nice sentences to read from the Sierra Club. I can’t believe every single chapter hasn’t adopted their position, because an abundance of clean fresh water is important everywhere. (A person struggling to find meaning might point out that the Sierra Club was, you know, originally founded by John Muir, who happened to live in this town, the town of the MOST FAMOUS BEAVERS EVER and which btw also happens to be the site of the grave of on the most famous beaver trappers ever.)
I’m sure it’s all a coincidence. But sometimes it kinda seems like destiny.
