Humans undermining beavers’ work

Leave it to beavers to put up structures that naturalize a stream and refurbish a wetland. Leave it to humans to foil their dam plans.

In a tale fraught with irony, a few homeowners are destroying the very creatures and dams that are accomplishing what scientists prescribe for improving Liberty Lake. The beaver-bashers are violating state wildlife laws – which carry fines up to $2,000 and one year’s jail time – to protect an illegal trail on Spokane County park property.

“It’s just frustrating. There’s so much ignorance about what’s really going on,” said Tom Brattebo, a lake resident who wants to see the wetland restored.

The furry nocturnal laborers are helping to re-establish a 150-acre wetland that was converted to pasture in the 1930s.

“I think that some citizens around here think the beavers are doing more harm than good, when in actuality, they are doing more good than harm,” said BiJay Adams, lake protection manager for Liberty Lake Sewer and Water District.

If left untouched, three beaver dams on the west channel of Liberty Creek will cause the stream to back up, breach man-made dikes and flow into the former cow pasture—transforming it back into a wetland.Several years ago, researchers determined that lake quality would improve if the wetland was re-established. Instead of the stream dumping sediment into the lake, fertilizing unwanted algae, the wetland would filter out nutrients.

Instead, humans are smashing the dams and slowing the naturalization process. Additionally, the beavers – eager to repair their makeshift homes – wreck havoc on nearby trees during their rebuilding project.

“They’re encouraging the beavers to cut more trees down to build those dams back up,” Adams said.

In the last two years, Adams has found several beavers floating with bullet holes through their heads. Although he hasn’t found any dead beavers this year, Adams said he encountered a mud-encrusted man on Thursday who had just trashed a dam.

The lake resident said he destroyed the dam to protect a nearby trail from flooding. Two sections of the dirt trial – each roughly a quarter-mile long – flood when the dams are left undisturbed.

Bob Hughes of the Spokane County Parks and Recreation Department mapped out the area and is considering rerouting those trail sections to higher ground. However, the trail is considered illegal because it was made without the county’s approval.

If the trail is moved, the new route will butt against private property. Park officials don’t yet have an easement and without the owner’s permission, Hughes worries that trail users will trespass.

“That’s why we’ve been dragging our feet on this issue,” Hughes said. “The public outcry is to fix the trail, and we’re kind of up against a wall as to how to do it.”

Hughes said the county recently spent $20,000 adding pedestrian bridges and culverts, and re-establishing waterways for fish on Liberty Creek.

The history of alterations to the creek dates back seven decades. A cattle farmer who owned the land dug two channels to redirect the stream and dry out the wetland to convert it to pasture.

Thirty years ago, lake residents formed the water and sewer district to clean up the lake, which was becoming overgrown with algae.

By then, the county owned the pasture as part of Liberty Lake County Park. Crews added dikes around the west channel – which handles 90 percent of the stream’s flow – to keep the water from flooding and washing nutrient-rich sediment from the former pasture into the lake, because researchers feared the sediment would fertilize unwanted algae.

As the times have changed, so have theories about how to have a clean lake with a thriving ecosystem.

Several years ago, Liberty Lake Sewer and Water District worked with researchers at Washington State University and Spokane County Parks Department on a plan to re-establish the wetland – and use it as a filter. The state departments of wildlife and ecology contributed information about re-establishing habitat in the area.

For now, the land is slowly transforming into a wetland – a preserved marsh providing habitat for waterfowl and other creatures. There is too much reed canary grass, a noxious weed, around the edges. But the center is sprouting cattails and other desirable plants.

By Friday morning, beavers had repaired portions of the dam that was wrecked on Thursday.

“I’m interested in seeing the stream return to its natural state,” Brattebo said. “The beavers are going to do their work and it’s really cool to watch.”