Glastonbury Connecticut was settled in 1693 with just 13 families in Pyaug on the eastern bank of the CT river, making it one of the oldest municipalities in the country. Just in time for Thanksgiving it really was obtained by negotiation the local tribes and the purchased for just 12 yards of trade cloth. (I’m sure it was worth every penny!)
Glastonbury very kindly offers us this story in time for Thursday’s offerings.
Beavers Block Glastonbury Plan To Drawdown Blackledge River Pond
Beavers 1, Town of Glastonbury 0.
Last month, the conservation commission approved a plan by the town to empty Blackledge River pond. The town had hired Milone and MacBroom, a Cheshire engineering firm, to create a plan to remove the 19th-century dam and reconstruct the river directly east of Blackldge Falls Park.
Only one problem. The beavers that call the pond home had other ideas.
According to Daniel A. Pennington, director of physical services/town engineer, beavers have not only added a layer of sticks, branches and mud to the top of the dam to raise the pond’s water level an additional 6-8 inches, the rodents have also plugged up a release value with the same material making it too difficult for the town to release the water. The town threw up the white flag.
“The beavers have won this battle,” Pennington said.
Ha! The beavers may have won this battle but not the war, because I dare say you’ll be back in the spring and to trap them out. I mean why let some beavers restore a creek naturally when you can pay experts millions of dollars to do it for you?
The town is removing the dam to help migratory fish species, including Atlantic salmon, sea lamprey and American eel navigate more than two miles of habitat up the Blackledge to the Gay City State Park dam. The Blackledge winds through Hebron, Glastonbury and Marlborough before linking with the Jeremy River. The two waterways form the Salmon River in Colchester which flows into the Connecticut River in East Haddam.
The town has a deadline of June 30, 2018, to remove the dam. It is estimated the removal and restoration work will cost $1.2 million.
Well, readers of this website all know about the relationship between beavers and salmon, but I thought I’d do a little reading up on the lamprey which I’m less familiar with. Turns out beaver friend Duane Nash of Southland Beaver has a whole column about their important connection, so I’ll let him take it from here.
Lamprey may be so important that their continued survival may be pivotal to the health of salmon fisheries. How is that so? you might be asking They parasitize and sometimes kill salmonids?
Turns out the lamprey youngsters, which are called ammocoetes, are not parasitic at all. In fact they do not even eat flesh- they filter the water, cleaning up algae, detritus and other bits from the water – and also burrow into the substrate. For these reasons they are often dubbed the earthworms of the river.
At this stage, which may last 7 years, ammocoetes serve as food for a number of critters- especially salmonids. There are loads of examples of steelhead stomachs being found just crammed with these guys. So although later they parasitize salmon, for the majority of their life they serve as food for them. And through their filter feeding abilities they promote cleaner, and therefore more well oxygenated environments that we all know salmonids love.
And now let us all tie it all back together with the beaver. From the USFW page on lamprey: Shortly after hatching in freshwater streams, lamprey larvae or ammocoetes drift downstream into areas of low velocity and fine substrates where they burrow, and live as filter feeders for up to 7 years. Hmmmm….. low velocity and fine substrates….. where might we find such habitat? Does anyone know of certain buck-toothed rodent that might actually create such habitats?
Thanks Duane! Someone tell the selectmen of Glastonbury that this beaver dam is already doing more to help the lamprey and salmonids than anything Milone and MacBroom is going to excavate or construct. Not to mention all the life you will destroy or displace by draining the creek. Every place you allow beavers to settle they will architect slower, more complex streams that help fish and restore the ecological conditions you once enjoyed.
Plus they work for free. I’m pretty sure you can think of somewhere else to use that 1.2 million. Right?
