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The Oregon city of Tigard is catching a mountain of flack for ripping out a beaver dam that officials say was abandoned and causing havoc with the sewers. Residents argue that they saw the beavers in the evening working and the place is a muddy wasteland without them. They’ve even gone so far as to say their property values have dropped because of this irresponsible action. Now the AP has picked up the story and it’s makings its rounds along the pacific.
The whole thing has been embarrassing enough that I received very long and prompt responses from my emails to the mayor and public works. Carla Staeder is the Environmental Coordinator for Public Works and explained that they had been following this dam for about 10 years. Remember this is OREGON where, even though they allow beavers to be classified as a predator on private land, they are still light years ahead of us in beaver management. Case in point: who do you suppose is the Environmental Coordinator for Public Works in Martinez?
As the environmental coordinator for the City of Tigard’s public works department, I would like to respond to your concerns. The city has been sensitively managing the dam in question for the last decade. (not a fact that has made it into the press) In 2003 a beaver deceiver was installed and functioned very well for almost 5 years. (It was installed to control water levels at the pond so that manholes connected to a 60” diameter sewer transmission line located under the stream would remain above water.) This deceiver failed in 2008. Later that year, our storm crews installed a new deceiver, modeled after the Washington Department of Transportation deceivers. That deceiver failed in 2010 and we were working on a new design to be installed in summer of 2011.
I assume she’s using the term deceiver generically, because I don’t believe anyone’s talking about protecting a culvert here. Bottom line is it looks like the dam removal started as an action by a private citizen who was mistaken for a city worker, but the papers never got that story. What they hacked out of the dam traveled downstream and plugged the culvert and made unbearable conditions for the sewer line when the city got there on Monday. Go read the whole letter here and see for yourself.
In the meantime, Tigard promises to cooperate more with ODFW and find more better solutions in the future. I wish the papers would report the whole story just so people realize that a ‘beaver deceiver’ took care of this dam for 8 years and offers a reasonable solution for cities.
Here’s what a resident captured. Who can watch these hopes drain away and not feel sad?
