Dammed pond dries out after state removes beaver dam

SARANAC LAKE — When the state removed train tracks for its rail trail project earlier this month it also removed a beaver dam that was creating a pond near where McKenzie Brook flows into Lake Flower.

Locals in the neighborhood who frequently walk along the tracks were shocked and upset. They say draining the pond of water is harming the wildlife living there. The state departments of Transportation and Environmental Conservation say the dam removal was permitted to prevent it from flooding and eroding the corridor, and that impacts to wildlife will be minimal.

“Two beaver dams were partially blocking water flow at a culvert and action was taken to mitigate potential for flooding,” DEC spokesperson JoMo Miller wrote in an email. “This is a common and necessary action for mitigating what can be a significant, costly and sometimes dangerous failure of infrastructure.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. You know the railway explaining that it had to tie beavers to the tracks to prevent THE FLOODING. Everyone does it. You know how it is.

Barbara Kent has lived within a mile of the pond her entire life. Every day, several times a day, she walks her two dogs “Maisie” and “Marigold” on the train-track trails passing the pond, where she takes in the sylvan sights.

Turtles sun themselves on logs, herons swoop low to stand in the water, loons and mergansers feed on the water and frogs belch noisily. Kent said the beavers dammed up the water generations ago and their work has lasted decades.

“It was always there, always,” Kent said. “Everybody just loved it up there.”

Well you know how it is. You and some turtles live your life near a beaver pond. And the beavers get killed them the pond gets destroyed. It’s a dog’s life.

The water body on McKenzie Brook is known colloquially as “Toxic Pond” because the old landfill, now greened over, can be seen through the trees.

Kent was “mortified” when on May 7 she walked down and saw excavator tracks leading off the rails to the dam. The middle of the dam was torn out. Water that used to trickle through the dam underneath now poured over the top. The water level in the pond was dropping and mud could be seen all along the perimeter.

On May 18 the water had dropped low enough to expose tires, logs and beaver huts out in the pond.

The water flowed over the busted dam and through a culvert, to a pond between the Sara Placid Inn and Suites and the Best Western hotel, under another culvert on state Route 86 and into Lake Flower.

“I fell apart over it,” Kent said with a sad chuckle. “I’m 73 years old. It doesn’t take much to rattle me.”

Well, you gotta break eggs to make an omelette and destroy some ponds to keep the trains tracks nice and dry. You know how it is.

Kent said she has no problem with the rail trail project, a controversial topic in town. She just hopes it will be accessible to people of all abilities. But she also said work has been done on the train tracks before without needing to rip the dam out and she doesn’t think it was necessary now.

“Am I being unreasonable?” Kent asked. “This was breeding grounds for so much wildlife.”

The DEC claims the environmental impact will be small.

“While there may be local and short-lived impacts to wildlife, these impacts are not expected to be significant,” Miller wrote. “Some local wildlife species using this wetland may move to other wetland areas and riparian corridors within the immediate area, whereas other species may continue to use the area.”

Adirondack Park Agency Spokesperson Keith McKeever said his agency would defer to the DEC’s judgement in commenting on this issue, because it has jurisdiction.

Kent said she’s worried the now-dry edges of the pond pose a wildfire risk.

Come on, it’s just a little destruction. The turtles and the frogs and the fish gotta be used to that by now. Be reasonable. It’s for the trains!

Kent wondered if the beavers would rebuild their dam and if the state would return to remove it again.

Some don’t want to leave it to beavers. Kent said she’s seen other frequenters of the trail throwing branches back into the water to dam it up again. She’s not sure if this is illegal or will just be ripped out again.

Kent said this feels like it’s a “losing battle.”

She was even hesitant to tell the Enterprise at first.

“But I kind of felt I owed it to the turtles,” she said.

Kent loves the area and has many happy memories there. Her dogs know the trail by heart. Kent was ecstatic on Tuesday when she saw a heron — whom she’s named “Harry” — still flying around. But she’s concerned for the turtles, ducks, eagles and geese. She was worried that she didn’t see any loons.

She hopes they’ll all find another place to live and expects some of the turtles have taken up residence downstream in Lake Flower.

Sure the wildlife has had their home destroyed and the beavers are gone, but just look the tracks are super  dry, isn’t that great? The problem with you is that you don’t appreciate the right things.