Flooding from beaver dam bedevils Worcester neighborhood
WORCESTER — Residents of a quiet neighborhood in southeastern Worcester say they’re struggling with an intractable property owner in their midst — a bad neighbor whose inaction allowed beavers to turn a small brook into a sprawling swamp that periodically inundates their backyards.
Unfortunately for the aggrieved residents, the property owner they have a problem with is notoriously hard to fight — City Hall.
When city public works crews clear the blocked culvert, they release a torrent of water that gushes off the city land into the backyards of homes along St. Louis Street, sometimes sweeping away lawn furniture and forming a small pond of standing water lapping uncomfortably close to their back doors.
Now before we talk about a city that makes the streets flood on purpose because they are worried that the streets might flood on accident, can we please discuss the alliteration spasm that appears to grip editors when faced with beaver stories? “Beavers Burst Bubble”, “Beavers Build Bottleneck” “Beavers Begin Badly”. But Beavers bedevil neighborhood? Honestly, what gives? How many ‘B’ words do editors know? A lot apparently. Maybe that’s as high as they got in the thesaurus.
But city officials maintain the changes to the brook are part of a natural process, and that the city can’t correct drainage problems on private property. After years of complaints from the residents, the city hired a trapper last year to round up roughly a dozen beavers on the conservation land.
Department of Public Works and Parks Commissioner Paul J. Moosey conceded that city crews have erred in releasing water from the marshy city property too rapidly.
“As much as we’ve tried to make the peace with this neighborhood, their expectations are more than we can handle,” Mr. Moosey said. “Any time we get a call from down there that we can do something about, we do.”
Some in the neighborhood feel the city has a hidden agenda to force them to accept public sewers and streets, which they have resisted for years because of the expense. They see the flooding and private streets issues as separate.
Aha! The city can’t possibly fix this problem the right way because the area is unincorporated! Those aren’t city streets and they aren’t on the public sewer. Basically the city is daring them to incorporate so that they can have their homes protected. “Lovely home here, shame if something was to happen to it.” Except that it does take tax dollars to run a public works department. Maybe the residents and the city should chip in for a flow device and take care of this problem for good?
I thought for today’s Auction show and tell I would share something I just got word is being donated to the silent auction this morning. Campfitters is generously sending us one of these: it’s a beaver wall hook, and I can’t imagine a nicer place to hang your jacket when you come home from a visit to the dam!
Oh, and just in case you need a reminder why we need an actual artist to make our brochure for the festival, here it is. I was trying to see how my idea for Amelia Hunter’s new brochure would look. I was thinking of something that would show a beaver on the water and under the water, to communicate the beaver’s remarkable duality and the way he impacts both. Mind you, the child I was painting it with asked if I was making a gopher.
Don’t worry, apparently that didn’t stop me.
