Beavers, which ranged across most of the North American continent prior to the arrival of the early European immigrants, should have the inherent right to re-inhabit its range. Given the opportunity, the beaver will get to work storing water in a distributed manner across Colorado’s landscapes…
— “Water storage and the American Beaver,” published on the Sierra Club Colorado Chapter website.
Last November, the voters in Pagosa Springs, Colorado turned down yet another chance to increase their taxes, to allow a local water district — the San Juan Water Conservancy District — to move ahead with a plan to build a new reservoir, north of downtown in a dry valley known as Dry Gulch. At one point, the reservoir had been priced at $357 million, but more recent estimates from SJWCD suggested a price of maybe $100 million, or even less. The District publicity mentioned a reservoir capable of storing around 11,000 acre-feet.
The tax increase requested by SJWCD would have allowed for a $2 million loan. I admit, I struggled with math back in high school, but it seems to me that a $2 million loan would have left the Water District a bit shy of the total needed.
Maybe the Water District should invest in beavers, instead?
A recent essay published on the Sierra Club Colorado Chapter website suggests that a typical beaver family is capable of building a pond that stores about 10 acre-feet of water — about 3.3 million gallons. Beavers are apparently willing to perform this service year after year, with absolutely no government subsidy — and without any need for a government bureaucracy to supervise their work. All a beaver asks for is a few saplings, now and then, to munch on.
If we were able to coax just 2,000 beaver families into relocate to Archuleta County (with a typical beaver family consisting of a husband, a wife, and four children) we would soon have 11,000 acre-feet of water storage at our disposal. Free of charge.
The story of the American beaver (known to scientists as Castor canadensis, even though you will almost never hear a beaver refer to itself by that name) is a sad tale. During the 1700s and 1800s, beaver coats and beaver hats became all the rage in Europe, and Russian and Baltic beavers were hunted to extinction — so a flood of foreign immigrants — mostly English and French — somehow made their way (illegally?) to North America and proceeded to skin every beaver they could find. Only a change in fashion — namely, the sudden popularity of silk hats — saved the American beaver from extinction.
There were once 60 million beavers employed in the water storage business in North America; the number today is maybe 6 million. Like I said, a sad story.
I’m certainly no expert on beavers, but my general impression is that they favor small government, private property rights, and a quiet, sparsely inhabited neighborhood surrounded by trees. Which is to say, they would fit right in with Pagosa Springs’ social culture.
The above-mentioned Sierra Club essay on beavers expressly mentions the “Colorado Water Plan,” assembled a couple of years ago under Governor John Hickenlooper’s watch. (You can read the plan at this website.) The Water Plan doesn’t list any “authors” — at least, I couldn’t find any such list — but I get the impression that hundreds, maybe thousands, of citizens had input into the Plan, through the various “Basin Roundtables” scattered across our great state.
If you do a search for ‘beaver’ on the plan website, however, you will be sorely disappointed.
How could hundreds of intelligent citizens give input into the Colorado Water Plan… and not a single mention of our water-loving friend, the beaver?
On behalf of Nature’s little water storage expert, I will go out on a limb and offer a possible reason why Governor Hickenlooper and his vast team of advisors utterly ignored this taxpayer-friendly rodent. It’s pretty simple, really. The Colorado Water Plan ignored everyone who questions massive government debt and expansive government bureaucracy.
The beaver, as it turns out, is in good company, politically speaking.
If only beavers were allowed to vote, what a different world this would be.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.