Did you listen to Suzanne’s interview yesterday? It was truly exceptional. Retirement from the forest service clearly agrees with her. She spoke much more passionately about beavers on the landscape and what they do for streams. I liked it so much I snagged some of the story telling and am playing with it now to make a video on powtoon. Soon I will share.
One of the things that really resonated with me this time is how America’s streams changed after beavers were trapped out – became bigger, faster, more flashy. And how beavers coming BACK to the landscape could over time repair the damage that was done. Reconnect streams to their floodplains and restore their function.
It made me remember long ago, when the beavers first came to Martinez. Before the flow device and maybe even before the big meeting. The beaver dam in the incised channel of Alhambra Creek was rising every day. I guess the beavers were trying to keep up with the rainfall. But I remember one morning that earthen platform you used to stand on beside the dam to film the beavers was covered in water. The beavers had raised the dam in the night along one side and the water level was climbing up to the place where we all sat to watch the beavers – about three feet lower than the road which was 6 feet higher than where the creek was supposed to be.
I remember feeling like I caught them doing something really bad and being scared the city would notice. Very quietly I knocked that mud rim out of the bank so that the water streamed down the slope. I didn’t want them to get ‘caught’.
But now I think – what if there had been no flow device. And the beavers hadn’t been stopped at all. In those days the water was backing up at Starbucks. The beavers could have flooded the bank at Ward street. Could have flooded the bank at Escobar street. Could have flooded all of Castro Street and the block of the new County Administration building. It’s not a stretch to say they could have flooded the park where the beaver festival was held all those years and eventually joined with the runoffs from green and main streets. They could have returned the alhambra watershed to a basin that sheltered runoff. And their children could have grown up and extended the entire operation upstream.
Beaver restoration is powerful. It makes me wonder what a place like Chernobyl where they came back and were left to their own devices looks like today.
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