Category: Beavers and water

THE SUN SHINES ON BEAVERS

I don’t know, you might be saying, does a beaver conference like the one they just held in Maryland even matter? Lots of experts talking to each other, but Is anyone really paying attention?

Deploying beavers to create dams could prevent Ellicott City flooding

Pickering is an ancient village in the Ryedale district of North Yorkshire, England, U.K. Descriptions of the place bring to mind Ellicott City, the old mill town in Howard County, Maryland, U.S.A. Visitors will find stone buildings along the main street in both communities. Both are nestled in valleys near public parklands. Both are tourist destinations. And both are situated on waterways and prone to damaging floods.

Pickering, in the drainage of the North York moorland, had considerable success in addressing its flood problems in recent years, but not in the big, costly way you might expect.

Oooh I wonder how. Don’t you? Hmm I have an idea,,,

“Pickering pulled off protection by embracing the very opposite of what passes for conventional wisdom,” journalist Geoffrey Lean reported in the Independent. “On its citizens’ own initiative, it ended repeated inundation by working with nature, not against it.”

Two beavers were released last year into a forest to build dams and help slow the flow of floodwater into the area. Just last month people who live in Yorkshire saw results. A storm by the name of Dennis came through and dropped what meteorologists call a “weather bomb” across England, with 90 mph winds and a one-day rainfall equal to what normally falls in two weeks. The storm caused extensive flooding, but apparently beaver dams upstream augmented the sticks-and-heather flood control already in place around Pickering.

“Beavers introduced to Yorkshire in 2019 may have prevented Storm Dennis flooding with their dams,” declared the Yorkshire Post on Feb. 20.

Alan Puttock, an environmental researcher from the University of Essex, proudly displayed that headline in Hunt Valley last week as he presented research at BeaverCON 2020, a gathering of professionals engaged in managing beavers and reintroducing them to places where their dam-building could benefit humans.

Yup, someone was paying attention. HURRAY HURRAY HURRAY! There was a beaver conference and a reporter paid attention!!! Hurray for Mike and Scott and Alan and Dan Rodricks!

So much of human activity causes flooding, it’s exciting to think about the possibility of bringing back beavers, deploying them where needed and where it makes sense, and letting them restore the landscape to its natural best.

We could consider it a team effort — combined human and beaver ingenuity to address serious challenges in land use, water quality and flood control. Could beavers have spared Ellicott City its recent trauma? I don’t know. But I know we’ve tried man-made solutions for a long time. Maybe it’s time to include a nature-based one.

Got that Maryland? Beavers are part of the solution. So stop killing and complaining and start celebrating! Let beavers do what they do best. And some things will work out okay.

NASA STUDIES BEAVERS

heidi08 Beavers and climate change, Beavers and water, Beavers and Wetlands February 25, 2020

You read that right. The REAL NASA is studying beaver habitat. Not that crazy rocket building flat-earther who killed himself trying to prove the earth wasn’t round. Scientists who know better.

Be on the Beaver Lookout

Mass Audubon and the Boston NASA DEVELOP National Program team are collaborating to learn more about how Massachusetts beavers impact the landscape using satellite imagery, and we need your help.

The NASA DEVELOP National Program addresses environmental and public policy issues through interdisciplinary research projects, applying NASA Earth observations to community concerns around the globe. Teams of DEVELOP participants partner with decision-makers to conduct 10-week rapid feasibility projects, highlighting relevant applications of NASA Earth observing missions, cultivating advanced skills, and increasing understanding and use of NASA Earth science data and technology. The DEVELOP Program conducts 55-65 projects annually across 11 national locations. This spring, the DEVELOP Boston team is partnering with Mass Audubon to explore how beavers influence the Massachusetts landscape.

Wow! Astrobeavers! Science thinks beavers are important enough to study from space! I’m so excited! Do you think beavers will know they’re being watched and start showing off?

Beavers are known as ecological engineers. They alter and create new habitats by building dams from sticks and mud to create still, deep ponds. These ponds provide beavers with access to food, protection from land predators, and shelter.

By building dams and creating ponds, beavers restore lost wetlands, of which about half have disappeared in the lower 48 states since European settlement. Beaver ponds are home to rich biodiversity, including amphibians, reptiles, spawning fish, muskrats, bats, various birds, and a wide variety of plants.

Altering the hydrology helps control downstream flooding, improve water quality, trap silt, and resupply groundwater. When the dam is abandoned and the pond drains, nutrient-rich silt creates highly productive meadows. However, beaver dams may cause unwanted flooding to neighboring properties, but can be mitigated through various solutions.

Whoa. So you mean NASA has this written down somewhere? A grant application or thesis statement. This is actually OFFICAL NASA DATA NOW? I need to sit down.

The spring 2020 Boston NASA DEVELOP team is using NASA satellite imagery to find and track beaver flooding events across Massachusetts to see how their populations are impacting landscapes. The team will be corroborating potential beaver flooding using iNaturalist beaver observations. iNaturalist is an online citizen science platform, where users upload and identify species observations (images or audio recordings).

How You Can Help

Help Mass Audubon and the NASA DEVELOP team by reporting beaver signs, including dams, lodges, chewed logs, or beaver themselves using iNaturalist, either in our sanctuaries or anywhere across Massachusetts.

Ahh sadly when I look up the study on NASA DEVELOP it looks more like they’re looking to find all the PROBLEMS beavers cause with their dam building flooding ways. Sigh. Someday we’ll get there. I know it.

MA: Massachusetts –Boston(Boston, MA)Western Massachusetts Water Resources: Using the Landsat Series to Assess Flood Events Resulting from North American Beaver Reintroduction to Inform Biodiversity and Infrastructure Managemen

BEEF: IT’S WHAT’S FOR BEAVERS

heidi08 BDA's, Beavers and water February 21, 2020

Why live with beavers? I can think of plenty of good reasons, and so, apparently, can BEEF magazine in Idaho. Yes you read that right.

Beaver power provides year-long water to Idaho ranch

Beavers? You read that right. Here’s how four-legged engineers helped restore an Idaho ranch.

Jay Wilde summarizes ranching simply: “Cows need two things—something to eat and something to drink.”

He speaks from experience. In 1995, when Wilde started ranching his family’s high-elevation property in Idaho’s Rocky Mountains, both food and water were hard to come by for livestock. Today this ranch is wealthy in forage and flowing streams, thanks to Wilde’s determination, many helpful partners … and beavers.

Oh yeah you know when an article starts off like this it’s gonna be good. Get your coffee and settle in. Remember it was the former director of Beef producer in Oklahoma that gave us one of our finest articles by Alex Newport: “Beavers: The cure we don’t want to take”

Today this ranch is wealthy in forage and flowing streams, thanks to Wilde’s determination, many helpful partners … and beavers.

Wilde was raised on the property with his siblings, where his parents grew grains. Jay had always dreamed of running a cattle operation and began putting in place conservation projects that would provide his livestock with reliable sources of forage and water.

Wilde remembers fishing and swimming in Birch Creek all summer long as a kid, and tried all sorts of tactics to restore year-round flow. Nothing worked. Then one morning over his pre-dawn coffee, it struck him: “Beavers! That’s what’s missing!”

Big grin. Just about nothing is better than a beaver AHA moment. We here at Worth A Dam collect them.

Beavers are some of nature’s best engineers. They gnaw down trees to create intricate dams and lodges as their shelter. In turn, their dams act to slow the flow of a stream, creating ponds that recharge the floodplain and raise the groundwater level. This allows water to trickle downstream long after snowmelt and rain taper off.

At one time, there were enough beaver ponds in the U.S. to submerge California, Oregon and Washington. But decades of trapping and hunting beavers decimated their populations. Thousands of streams deepened and straightened, and many wet meadows, small creeks, and floodplains disappeared across the country.

Many ranchers still think of beavers as ditch-clogging nuisances. But others—like Wilde—now realize that getting rid of beavers also reduces the amount of water available for livestock operations.

“Do we want to eliminate beavers and eliminate the water coming out of the canyons, or do we want to live with the beavers?” asks Wilde. “Keeping beavers around makes good common sense when you get down to the science of it.”

And a rousing chorus of HUZZAH broke out around the land! YES! Let’s listen to a rancher because no one like to listen to the scientists. I mean if the message is the same that works for me.

In 2014, Wilde came across an article about people using Beaver Dam Analogues (BDAs) to create habitat for the rodents before re-introducing them to a watershed. BDAs are simple, low-tech structures that mimic real beaver dams to provide the initial building blocks that help beavers recolonize a stream. BDAs are easily built by hand using mud, cobble, and root wads, or by weaving small branches through posts pounded into the stream bed.

Wilde promptly called up the two professionals mentioned in the article, who worked at Utah State University and Anabranch Solutions. They helped Wilde build 19 BDAs in 2015. Wilde then partnered with the USFS and Idaho Fish & Game to relocate five beavers into Birch Creek—who happily set up shop using the BDAs as home base.

The next year, Wilde hosted a training workshop on beaver-assisted restoration for over 40 natural resource professionals from across the West. Sponsored by the NRCS-led Sage Grouse Initiative, his ranch was a model for why it’s worth investing in low-cost, low-tech methods for restoring streams on private agricultural lands. Workshop participants helped build

First the BDA’s then the beavers then the water then fish. You see how it work.

“When you see the results, it’s almost like magic. It makes the effort worthwhile,” says Wilde.

Re-beavering this Idaho ranch created more water for livestock. And it also resulted in more water for fish—Birch Creek’s Bonneville cutthroat trout populations are 10 to 50 times higher in the ponded sections of the creek than before beavers returned.

By restoring these natural engineers, Wilde’s ranch and its surrounding public lands now boast luscious wet meadows with nutritious forage, healthy riparian habitat for wildlife, and floodplains that are more resilient to fire, drought, and erosion.

Now, Wilde is spreading the word about the benefits to livestock producers of using beavers to fix streams. He’s presented at dozens of workshops and talked to hundreds of other ranchers about what’s possible when you “get onboard with beavers.”

Perfect Jay. We couldn’t have said it better ourselves. What a great way to spread the word. I wish you could come to the beaver festival and talk to folks about what you’ve done. Come to think of it I wish there could be huge displays at the festival about all the good things folks are understanding beavers can do.

WATER WORKS BETTER WITH BEAVERS

heidi08 Beavers and Flooding, Beavers and water February 1, 2020

Fire and water is there anything more primal? As you know beavers can help with both. This new film from Dr. Ellen Wohl and her student Julie Medeiros is a great way to talk about the later. Please enjoy and pass along.

Julie and Emily? Colorado sure is producing some amazing beaver researchers! I can’t wait to see what they both do next.

Jon and I were busy yesterday with some potential beaver hosts in Sussex, who were sent our way by the the good folks at the Beaver trust. Alistair and Diane Gould operate a ‘course fishing’ escape with a stream “Furnace Brook” in Sussex that they dream might one day host beavers. You can see how perfectly they’d fit in.

The area in the 16th century was part of the Wealden Iron industry, and its use dates back to Roman times. The Goulds now are treating it as a sustainable paradise for fishing and education with the goal of healing any scars that were made over centuries of use.

The Goulds were visiting their son and grandson in San Francisco and wanted to learn more about living with beavers. Maybe someday soon you’ll be reading about them on the news. They were also thrilled to visit the John Muir historic site nearby.

Not all that far from Furnace Brook by American standards, a famously successful beaver reintroduction just occurred at the Holnincote estate on the other side of the base of the country. This was a project of the National Trust and has been roundly promoted to see if the beavers can help with flooding. This is from the Guardian, but believe me its been EVERYWHERE these past few days.

‘Drivers of change’: beavers released on National Trust land to ease flooding risk

The aim of releasing a pair of beavers on to National Trust land at the Holnicote estate in Somerset is to ease flooding and increase biodiversity. “It’s an exciting moment,” said Ben Eardley, the project manager for the National Trust at Holnicote, as the female beaver found a bramble-covered ledge to hide away in. “The beavers will shake this place up, they’re a real driver of change.”

In time, Eardley said, the beavers will thin out the trees in their 2.7-hectare home, bringing in more light and with it more flora and fauna – birds, invertebrates, other mammals. Another big hope is that the dams they build will slow the flow of water, easing the risk of flooding downstream.

BEAVERS GET A BIGGER JOB. CAN THEY DO IT?

heidi08 Beavers and water January 24, 2020

I’m sure you’ve read something about the EPA’s new rule rolling back restrictions of the clean water act. Millions of streams, headwaters and wetlands that were once protected from pollution will now be accessible to all forms of devastation. It’s part of Mr. Trump’s fervent campaign to undo everything Obama did. And boy is he dedicated to his cause.

EPA final rule unravels Clean Water Act protections

The Environmental Protection Agency announced today it is finalizing a rule that will drop protections for millions of miles of streams and millions of acres of wetlands, putting watersheds at risk for countless Americans.

The revised rule announced Thursday states that ephemeral bodies of water — those that form only after rainfall or that flow only part of the year and dry up at other times — are among those that are not subject to federal control. This exception also applies to waste treatment systems, groundwater, prior converted cropland and farm watering ponds.

It also identifies four categories that are federally regulated under the Clean Water Act: large navigable waters such as the Mississippi River, tributaries, lakes and ponds, and major wetlands.

Hear that? The only water we need to protect is water we can SAIL on. I.E. that people might see. Shipping water. Not drinking water. And if you think Trump is especially evil think again because this is EXACTLY what the Bush administration did before Obama came along.

Despite prior reports, there are no data or tools that can accurately map or quantify the scope of “waters of the United States.” This is the case today, and it was the case in 2014 when the Obama Administration issued its blog titled “Mapping the Truth.” Therefore, any assertions attempting to quantify changes in the scope of waters based on these data sets are far too inaccurate and speculative to be meaningful. While this Administration agrees that the current data and tools are insufficient, we are committed to supporting the development and improvement of the technology needed to map the nation’s aquatic resources.

Water can go EVERYWHERE if it floods right? So there’s no real way to say where a stream should be. I mean your house could be in the middle of a stream if we keep releasing carbon. So lets not quibble about “Is it a stream” or “Isn’t it a stream“. Lets just say once it gets navigable it matters.

You can thank Justice Scalia for pointing us towards this dark place before his death. Well, Scalia and Trump.

On February 28, 2017, the President signed the “Executive Order on Restoring the Rule of Law, Federalism, and Economic Growth by Reviewing the ‘Waters of the United States’ Rule.” The E.O. calls on the EPA Administrator and the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works to review the final 2015 Rule and “publish for notice and comment a proposed rule rescinding or revising the rule….” The E.O. directs that the EPA and the Department of Army “shall consider interpreting the term ‘navigable waters’” in a manner “consistent with Justice Scalia’s opinion” in Rapanos v. United States (2006).

Rapano?

The Supreme Court split 4-1-4 on Rapanos, a case brought by a Michigan landowner who was blocked from developing a property that had been designated a wetland. Writing for the four conservative justices, Scalia said only waterways and wetlands with “relatively permanent” surface water connections to larger waterways should be regulated under the Clean Water Act.

But Kennedy — then the court’s swing vote — drew up his own regulatory test, arguing that streams and wetlands should be protected if they have chemical, biological or hydrological connections to waterways. That test — which he called a “significant nexus” — became the defining characteristic of his opinion.

Kennedy was right. But Kennedy is gone, sipping whiskey on the back porch of his grandaughter’s birthday party. And the criminals have taken over the grocery store and the bank and the police station. Now officially ZERO waterways are connected to any other waterways. And we can dump pollution anywhere we want except a handful of rivers. Beginnings are unimportant and it doesn’t matter until you get to the end.

America voted for this.