Road trip 7 - Beaver, WV

Sadly, the good people of Beaver, West Virginia seem to given up on embracing their inner beaver. We were unable to find a single Beaver souvenir in the entire town. Not a t-shirt, coffee cup, ball cap or shot glass to be had.

I'm thinking in the future the Beaver Queen Pageant might consider adopting this town.

Continue reading Road trip 7 - Beaver, WV

I have always depended on the kindness of strangers

To keep Durham's waterways (relatively) clean. Here's some of what got picked up from the Beaver Pond behind Compare Foods this weekend.


I think this is the fourth year that there's been a trash cleanup in the Beaver Pond, and it looks like this was the most stuff hauled out yet. Sadly, there's a lot of crap still lining the fence between the creek and the parking lot.

Maybe this will help.

Also noticed that one of the undeveloped parcels on Foushee St., between the old K-Mart and the new McDonald's parking lot, is for sale. The city's GIS doesn't differentiate this lot from the rest of the shopping center. Given how much abandoned retail space there is in the shopping center, and how much extraneous parking exists to serve that unused space, i'm curious how much new parking whoever buys and builds on that lot is going to be required to add.

Continue reading I have always depended on the kindness of strangers

Always enjoyable

Because really, who doesn't enjoy a giant inflatable beaver?

And FB users? Become a fan.

via CDR

Continue reading Always enjoyable

Herald Sun discovers the Beaver Pond

Read all about it.

Earlier story here.

Continue reading Herald Sun discovers the Beaver Pond

Beaver Pond preserved!

I've written about the Beaver Pond off Avondale Drive, behind Compare Foods and just north of I-85 numerous times.

Here's some great news to report.

Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association has, finally, taken title to the 32 acre parcel. The spring newsletter, in print but not yet online, has all the details. Turns out the previous owner was persuaded to sell below market value, and both the Clean Water Management Trust Fund and the Upper Neuse Clean Water Initiative kicked in funds. Look for the Beaver Pond to join the list of ECWA managed nature destinations in Durham in the near future.

More information, i'm certain, will be available at the 5th Annual Beaver Queen Pageant, coming up on June 6 at the Duke Park Meadow. Check out the newly revamped Beaver Lodge website for all the details. I'm honored once again to be the official blogger for the pageant. I'll be posting both here and at BeaverLodgeLocal1504.org over the next month or so till the pageant.

See you there.

Continue reading Beaver Pond preserved!

Celebrate!

It's National Beaver Day (in Canada).

Where's your Big Beaver Bash going to be?


Beaver lodge, Durham, NC

Compare this photo with one taken a few years ago to see the impact of the invasive species Ludwigia Peruviana, which is the red stemmed matted plant choking much of the open water.


This photo was taken February 26, 2006. You can see how successful L. Peruviana has been in colonizing the pond in just three years. Come back in the summer and see how much more is there.


About 40 people gathered at the lodge site behind Compare foods off Avondale Drive last Sunday for a tour of the pond sponsored by Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association. Kathi Beratan, center, led the tour and provided lots of information about stormwater runoff into the pond and the adjacent Ellerbe Creek.


Beavers, of course, are found in many places besides Durham. This is a beaver sighting in Cary.

Continue reading Celebrate!

Beaver news

Elsewhere:

Wildlife officials are celebrating the sighting of a beaver in the Detroit River for the first time in decades, signaling that efforts to clean up the waterway are paying off.

The Detroit Free Press reports that a beaver lodge has been discovered in an intake canal at a Detroit Edison riverfront plant. Officials believe the beaver spotted by the utility's motion-sensitive camera marks the animal's return to the river for the first time in at least 75 years.

Durham:

Please join Kathi Beratan, Chair of ECWA's Water Quality Committee, for a stormwater walk on Sunday, February 22nd at 2:00 PM. She'll lead us around one of Durham's hidden natural spots: the beaver pond/wetland site behind Compare Foods (located a half block east of E. Club and Roxboro, at 2000 Avondale Drive). Kathi's a great speaker and passionate about stormwater and its impact on Ellerbe Creek. She'll also touch on other interesting aspects of the site such as invasive plants, birds, beaver dams, and the beaver lodge that's situated in the middle of the pond.

We'll meet in the parking lot behind Compare Foods and next to the pond. Note that the paths around the pond are a bit rough, and the stems and roots of poison ivy will be present in some places. You'll want to wear long pants and sleeves, as well as sturdy, closed shoes.

For some info about ECWA's stormwater related projects, go to www.ellerbecreek.org, and click on the "Water Quality" link in the menu on the left side of the page.

Timely, i think, in light of this recent report at BCR. I also wonder if anyone in our local government/development community has read this thought provoking article?

Continue reading Beaver news

Kudos

Earlier this week, i was back at the beaver lodge, being interviewed about how it could be a much more valued resource as parkland for the community. We were talking briefly about the grease trap issue that i highlighted here about 6 months ago. This time around, we noticed a large stain where hydraulic fluid has been leaking from a large trash compactor in the back of Compare Foods. After the interview was over, i let the folks at ECWA know about this latest development, and i'm pleased to report that, by Friday afternoon, Durham's Stormwater Services had already taken action.

Thanks for bringing this problem to our attention. Our staff conducted an investigation this morning and observed a hydraulic fluid discharge on the pavement behind the Compare Foods building located at 2000 Avondale Drive. As you stated below, the discharge originated from the trash compactor belonging to Compare Foods. Our staff also observed an oil sheen on the water surface inside the nearby storm drain and at the head of the wetland.



I have notified the property owner and business owner of the violation and required corrective actions that will need to commence immediately. Corrective actions will include at least the following:



* Clean up and proper disposal of the discharged product (on the pavement, storm drainage system, and wetland)
* Reporting of discharge to NC DENR DWQ Raleigh regional office within 24 hours of our notification
* Obtaining a spill clean up kit
* Repair of trash compactor
* Daily inspection of trash compactor area and immediate clean up of spills should they occur.



A contractor has already been hired to perform the clean-up and is expected to commence work this afternoon. We will continue to monitor this location until the clean-up is complete and the issue is resolved. Our staff will be sending a notice of violation letter to the business and property owners and will likely issue a civil penalty to one or both parties due to the prior history of discharges from this location.

Thank you to Bill Hailey and John Cox of the city's Stormwater Services Division for outstanding service.

Continue reading Kudos

Beavers in the news

Our reigning Beaver Queen, Yogi Beaver, forwards this article from the Denver Post, which i missed when it was first published last year:

"I love that smell. Don't you just love it? Nothing smells better to me," says Sherri Tippie, inhaling deeply. "I was born for beavers."

As Colorado's lone licensed live trapper and relocator of beavers, the opinionated part-time jail barber from Lakewood has become a legend among beaver lovers. For 22 years, she has battled stereotypes - and centuries of history - that paint beavers as water-hoarding pests worth more as soft hats than wild animals. Tippie has relocated several hundred, maybe even a thousand of the industrious, family-centric creatures.

She traps the engineering animals in metro Denver's urban streams and releases them in rural areas where their labor is appreciated for creating wetlands, raising water tables, restoring silty top soil and cleaning water.

"We need to change people's perceptions," Tippie says, slapping her leg in frustration. "Too many people today have a golf-course mentality. Water goes here. Flowers here. Grass here. Trees there. It goes against nature. We've spent too long working against nature."

And her beloved beavers, she says, support "nature's dance."

"When people complain about beavers, they don't know enough about them," she says, nearly screaming over the din of Bubba's laboring engine. "They are the most important wilderness species out there and they are the most degraded. If you want to control the beaver, control their food supply. It's as simple as wrapping trees."

. . .

Soon after delivering those first Aurora beavers to Rocky Mountain National Park, Tippie found herself one of the nation's leading live trappers and relocators of beavers. Today, the group she formed in 1987, Wildlife 2000, is one of the few resources for anyone seeking an option beyond killing dam-building beavers.

She travels the West, speaking to groups and advocating live trapping. She promotes wrapping trees to control a beaver colony's food supply. She installs steel cages over culverts where beavers like to build their lodges and dams, allowing a beaver family to thrive without disrupting water flow. She shows devices known as "beaver deceivers" - pipes snaked beneath a beaver dam allowing water to continue moving downstream while leaving the beaver pond intact.

After trapping her beavers, she rushes them to beaver-savvy ranchers and public land managers across the state. In the winter, she lines up homes for her beavers long before she sets her first traps in late June.

Tippie's fight for the beaver rakes against history. French beaver trappers forged the American West. Beaver pelts anchored this fledgling country's economy after demand for soft beaver hats soared in Europe, where the animals were trapped into near extinction in the early 1700s.

The history stacked against beavers and the ingrained mindset toward trapping and killing the animals does not faze Tippie. One beaver at a time, and one person at a time, she pursues a new world where beavers and people coexist happily.

"She has a big history up in this valley," Holschuh says, describing the stories of Tippie hauling beavers on mules deep into the Sangre de Christo range. "If people like Sherri would come and educate us, we could really do some good for the environment up here."

Sherri Tippie is an honorary Beaver Queen in my book. You can celebrate the contribution to our ecosystem made by beavers at the 4th Annual Beaver Queen Pageant on Saturday, June 7th, at the Duke Park meadow. Pre-pageant kids activities from 5 - 6 pm, and the pageant will get under way with a rousing entry featuring the Scene of the Crime Rovers at 6 pm sharp.

Continue reading Beavers in the news

Beaver news

As all of Durham anxiously awaits the crowning of this year's Beaver Queen on June 7, we note with more than just passing curiosity this BBC news item:

The European beaver is to be reintroduced to Scotland for the first time in more than 400 years, the Scottish Government has announced.

Environment Minister Michael Russell has given the go-ahead for up to four beaver families to be released in Knapdale, Argyll, on a trial basis.

The beavers will be caught in Norway and released in spring 2009.

Mr Russell said: "This is an exciting development for wildlife enthusiasts all over Scotland and beyond."

The beavers, which will be captured in autumn 2008, will be put into quarantine for six months before three to four families are released. Five lochs have been proposed for the release.

This will be the first-ever formal reintroduction of a native mammal into the wild in the UK.

The trial will be run over five years by the Scottish Wildlife Trust and the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, with Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) monitoring the project.

Mr Russell added: "The beaver was hunted to extinction in this country in the 16th Century and I am delighted that this wonderful species will be making a comeback.

"They are charismatic, resourceful little mammals and I fully expect their reappearance in Knapdale to draw tourists from around the British Isles and even further afield."

Of course, Durham is home to one of the largest beaver ponds in the Piedmont region, behind the Compare Foods on Avondale Drive, just north of I-85. No word yet from any of our elected officials when they will recognize the potential economic benefits of this natural resource.

Continue reading Beaver news

Dog food?

UPDATE: Welcome North Carolina Hunting And Fishing Forums readers!
UPDATE II: Feedback from WRAL below.

Shame on Sampson County. I'm certain that the Beaver Lodge will be springing into action soon.

"The beaver problem seems to grow despite our best efforts," Holder said. "The professional trappers go deep into the heart of the problem, and they're able to, hopefully, break up dams and solve the root of the problem."

From December through February, Thompson and the other two trappers netted 558 beavers.

“It’s certainly working,” said Kent Wooten, Sampson County's director of the state Cooperative Extension Service.

During the three-month trapping season, property owners can call the county and have trappers remove beaver dams for free. Outside the season, trappers charge for the service.

Thompson, who has trapped beavers for 40 years, paddles and plods deep into the swamps to get the job done. Beavers can wreak havoc in the county if left unchecked, he said.

"You got to keep the water moving for the drainage. If they keep building beaver dams, they're going to have water running everywhere but in the creek," he said. "The water will be so high, it runs across the road. We got farms where the water is running all through the people's fields."

One pair of beavers breeds two to seven babies year, he said.

"If they're not caught, next year, that crowd will raise some more," he said.

The carcasses of the trapped beavers are sent to Barbour Fur Co. in Smithfield, where they’re used to make dog food and fur products. “No part is wasted,” Thompson said.

Hey, WRAL, where's the other side of the story? You know, the part that talks about how beavers help to purify the water and provide habitat for dozens of other species? You can contact WRAL General Manager Jim Hefner through this web page and let him know how disappointed you are in this story.

Contact info for Sampson County is here if you want to let them know how you feel about these ignorant and barbaric acts. One of these days, i guess, Sampson County will get around to providing email services for their commissioners and employees.

UPDATE: My email to WRAL.

Your recent story on beaver eradication in Sampson County did not mention any of the ecological benefits of having a local beaver population, nor did it discuss any of the other possible solutions to beaver/human co-habitation besides eradication, which a brief Google search would have helped uncover.

As a member of Beaver Lodge Local 1504, founded in Durham County several years to, among other things, find solutions other than eradication to beaver issues, I really wish that you had taken the time to explore additional aspects of this issue. As it stands, your coverage was disappointing.

Barry Ragin

UPDATE: Email from WRAL:

This is Bryan Mims, the reporter who did the beaver story. You’re right – we need to explore the benefits of beavers to the ecosystem. The story came across as a bit flippant, and this is an issue that shouldn’t have been treated as such.

That said, I plan on doing a story in the next week – or at least in the next month – about the virtues of beavers. I could certainly tap the expertise of your organization.

Thanks for watching,

Bryan

Continue reading Dog food?

Beaver Lodge adventures

Looks like members of Beaver Lodge Local 1504 have been busy gnawing on some doughnuts in Raleigh. They got it hot and now. Ginny's got the video.

Continue reading Beaver Lodge adventures

Beaver Pond update

I'd like to think that it was my awesome photos, or perhaps my threat to stop spending eighty bucks a month or so at Compare Foods that did it, but i won't take any more credit than i have to. I heard a rumor that folks were working on the sewer problem behind the Compare Foods that i reported on earlier in the week.

Stopped by today, and sure enough, something has been done.

All three manhole covers are up, there's no apparent outflow, and all three of the holes are "protected" by pallets. As long as nobody decides they need some cheap firewood tonight, that should work. It still smells pretty rancid back there, but i can't say whether or not that's a lingering odor, or indicative of the fact that the problem has not yet been cleared up. At any rate, there's nothing flowing into the beaver pond at the moment.

Which is a good thing, because if there was, i don't think these sandbags are up to the task of keeping anything out.

Continue reading Beaver Pond update

Beaver Pond update

Assistant Deputy City Manager Ted Voorhees posted the following in the comments:

Durham Stormwater Services has an ongoing enforcement case against Compare Foods on this discharge. Jonathan Baker is the lead investigator and can provide more details, if necessary. He and other staff members have visited the site several times, have talked to managers, and have sent Notices of Violation (NOV) to both the property owner and the tenant (Compare Foods.) The tenant’s attorney requested an explanatory meeting on the NOV held December 21, and attended by Senior Assistant City Attorney Emanuel McGirt. Their attorney brought engineering plans from when the location was a Winn-Dixie that they intended to us to demonstrate that other businesses may be causing the problem. The plans show that only Compare Foods discharges to the grease trap (first two manholes) and furthermore the plans do not show that any other business discharges to the third manhole immediately downstream from the grease trap.

Initially the sewage was coming from the first manhole, indicating that the grease trap was clogged; now the sewage is coming from the third manhole. It may be that the tenant has cleaned out the grease trap, and is assuming the property owner is responsible for the manhole. Fine amounts are mounting while the finger-pointing plays out. The maximum fine for first time violations is $2,000. However, each day of a continuing violation is a separate offense. The fines will be far in excess of the cost of a plumber to remove a grease blockage.

On the stormwater side, we are pursuing enforcement to get the discharge eliminated.

So the answer is that it takes several City staffers to deal with recalcitrant individuals, and we are required to follow due process. The City maintenance folks are correct that they have done all that THEY can do, but other staffers are prosecuting this case.

I'll be letting the folks at Compare Foods know that i won't be shopping there for the foreseeable future.

How about you?

Continue reading Beaver Pond update

New Year's Eve at the beaver lodge

While i was up at the lodge behind KMart/Compare Foods on Avondale Drive taking these pictures, i caught a pretty good whiff of a smell that i recall strongly from my childhood, but that i don't notice much any more.

When i was a kid, my dad's work took him into all kinds of grocery stores, usually in the hours before they were open to the public. I'd go to work with him on occasion, entering the A&P from the back and walking through the frigid rooms with their pink, white, and grey sides of beef hanging from hooks, bright purple USDA stamps declaring that they had, in fact, been inspected by someone. There's a very particular smell that beef fat takes on after it's been trimmed from the carcass and discarded.

And that's what i smelled yesterday behind the Compare Foods. It took me a few minutes to track down the source.


this grey tinged water bubbling up from a sewer manhole behind the store, running a couple of gallons a minute into the beaver pond, seemed to be the culprit. Fortunately, when i went around to the front of the store to do my grocery shopping, i ran into a guy driving a Durham Water & Sewer maintenance truck, and told him about what i had found around back. Unfortunately, when i went back to the leak after doing my shopping, the guys from Neighborhood Improvement Services who were back there picking up old pallets told me that no one from Stormwater had come by. So i phoned it in to Durham One-Call. I'm going to head back there shortly to check if anyone from the city has stopped by.

In the meantime, it was also nice to see that the parking lot in front of KMart was getting put to good use.

Kevin reports that some leases have been signed for about half of the available space at KMart. I'm not sanguine that either the owners or the new tenants appreciate the natural beauty and significance of the area around that shopping center, but business is certainly preferable to vacancy, at this point.

UPDATE: Greasy water continues to bubble up behind the Compare Foods and into the beaver pond as of 5 pm New Year's Day.

My layman's guess is that we're looking at 2-3 gallons per minute.

I just spoke with someone at Water and Sewer who said that a crew did go out yesterday after i reported to One Call, and confirmed my suspicion that a grease trap is blocking the line and causing overflow, but that it's on private property and there's nothing else the city can do at this time except notify the owners that there's a problem.

Does that seem sufficient to anyone else? The water is definitely heading straight into the beaver pond.


UPDATE II: From the ECWA list:

As far as I know, that the beaver pond is public waters, and not privately owned, so you are right that makes a sewage spill a Clean Water Act violation. The NC Division of Water Quality is the place to report it. If the City has neglected to follow up on your report (they should have auto-dialers and emergency response even on a holiday), that should be even further reason for penalizing.

Here’s the number from DWQ’s website “to report an environmental emergency” (this counts!) 1-800-858-0368.

I would also recommend a follow up call to the Raleigh Regional Office, 919/791-4200, where they handle enforcement in Triangle area counties. Here’s a map: http://www.enr.state.nc.us/html/regionaloffices.html

They may have another emergency number, or just ask that the message be relayed to the Water Quality staff assigned to Durham County. Definitely ask that they call you back, so you’ll know that someone’s taking action! I’ll be glad to work with you later to follow up and see what action was actually taken.

That's from someone at Clean Water for NC.

I've called the state DWQ number and made sure they're aware of this. To be honest, "my work here is done." I (nor any other citizen who deals with local issues like these) should have to make it a part-time job to follow up with various agencies making sure that stuff likes this gets taken care of. That's why we pay our public servants salaries.

Continue reading New Year's Eve at the beaver lodge

Go beavers!

Beavers are on the move:

Plans are in the pipeline for beavers to be released into the Scottish wild for the first time in 500 years.

Wildlife bodies have asked the Scottish Government for a licence to allow about 20 beavers to be set free in Argyll in 2009.

The Scottish Wildlife Trust and the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland believe the animals will improve the eco-system and boost tourism.

Beavers were hunted to extinction in Scotland in the 16th Century.

I'm sure everyone at Durham's Beaver Lodge 1504 wishes our Scottish friends the best.

Continue reading Go beavers!

Go Beavers!

Congratulations to the Beavers of Oregon State University on back to back NCAA College World Series victories.

A good year for beavers.

Continue reading Go Beavers!

Let's go Beavers!

Congrats to the Oregon State Beavers, who defeated the UC Irvine Anteaters 7-1 tonight at the College World Series. The Beavers await the winner of tomorrow night's game between Carolina and Rice. The best 2 of 3 series for the championship begins on Saturday.

Go Beavers!

Continue reading Let's go Beavers!

Go Beavers!

Everyone down at the lodge is pulling for the Oregon State Beavers to make it two in a row in the College World Series. They took a big step last night, crushing the ASU Sun Devils 12 - 6.

Go go Beavers.

Continue reading Go Beavers!

Home Sweet Lodge

The beavers behind the K-Mart shopping center on Avondale Dr., just north of I-85, are doing what beavers are supposed to do - create wetland habitat and purify water.

If i were an elected official in Durham, i would be doing whatever i could to turn this totally natural and unplanned wetland into a nature preserve and destination.

Continue reading Home Sweet Lodge