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Posted by Tim Holloway on Tuesday, August 12, 2008 at 19:30:38 :
Here is an issue I have been muling over and would welcome some input.
There is a stream that flows past my house. My driveway crosses the stream, my bridge is an earth and stone "dike" that is open for 16 feet to allow the water to pass, plus a 5 foot culvert in one side of the dike. Beavers have often built dams underneath the bridge span, which are a pain to get out. They had been working on a dam this summer, but my "target practice" seems to have slowed them down. Anyway, the last few weeks have been very wet, and the water level has risen higher than I have ever seen it in the 26 years we have lived here. It will often run over the lower embankment in the spring snow melt but it dosent damage the bridge, it just washes over. There is now at least 10" flowing over and is still not hurting anything. We are not driving over, we put on barn boots and wade through.
As the water has risen, large mats of cattails have ripped free and float downstream to fetch up on the bridge. Most of these mats are the size of cars. So, here is my question. Am I better to leave these mats alone, to slow down the water flowing across the bridge, or should I take my backhoe and clear them out? They fetch up in front of the mouth of the culvert, which is not plugged with beaver dam. With the cattails gone a lot more water would pass through the culvert, but more would also pass over the bridge.
So, leave them or remove them?
Thanks for bearing with me through this long post!
Tim
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