Most everything you read about the John Day in Oregon project to restore streams using beavers is hopeful, encouraging, sensible and wise. But of course any star has many angles. and some of them especially pointy. A new dissertation took a computer model of all that dam water storage everyone’s talking about and found that it made zero difference to streams in late summer. So why even bother? File this research right next to the one that says “I guess we could increase the minimum wage, but those poor people will just blow the money on booze and women.” or “‘sure we can improve health care for certain ethnic group, but they just grow up and shoot each other anyway! So what’ the point?’
OSU study: More water in meadows unlikely to aid streamflows
– Increasing water storage in the mountain meadows of the arid West through diverse river restoration strategies has local benefits for vegetation but is unlikely to benefit downstream flows, according to an Oregon State University study.
Such practices may increase plant growth along streams and in adjacent valleys, with potential benefits for riparian ecosystems, grazing animals and agriculture. But as thirsty plants tap moisture reserves in the soil, they pump some of that water back into the atmosphere, a process known as evapotranspiration. As a result, flows downstream are likely to be unaffected and may even be diminished.
Do you get it? Yes. those beaver ponds save water and increase biodiversity and everything, but then those goddam plants and animals come and suck it all UP. They don’t even save it for us to use, the ungrateful species. So it actually doesn’t help!
The research was conducted by Caroline Nash, a Ph.D. student in the Oregon State University Water Resources Engineering program, and Gordon Grant, adjunct professor in the OSU College of Ocean, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences and a U.S. Forest Service hydrologist.
“There is a robust movement to restore rivers in the West,” said Grant. “By ponding more water in meadows on higher surfaces, people have suggested that extra water would become available to increase flows downstream, especially in the late summer. No one had tested that rigorously until now. This is the first time we’ve been able to show that while creating wet meadows might have real benefits for ecosystems, livestock and other agricultural purposes, the downstream benefits to streamflow aren’t realistic.”
While raising the level of incised channels raised groundwater levels in the adjacent land and increased total water storage, the researchers found that changes to late summer flows, when rivers are typically at their lowest, were “undetectably small.” Moreover, reductions in streamflow are likely from increased evapotranspiration, a lower gradient of the water table from meadows drawing to channels, and a lower volume of soil in which drainable water could be stored.
You see? There is a value for beavers but now research has proven its “undetectably small“. So stop researching them already. We well know that because this paper concludes that BEAVERS DON”T MATTER we should be prepared to see its bogus findings reported everywhere in the coming days. Bad beaver news travels fast. And everyone loves to be told what they are sure anyway is true already .
Michael Pollock said that NOAA needs a hyrdrologist on this right away and thinks the study doesn’t accurately invoke the scale that is needed. Stay tuned for what comes next.
Meanwhile I just finished this bio for the back of the brochure with Amy’s picture and this seems as good as a time as any to share it.
