Eight beavers solved a flooding problem in the London Tube

 

Courtesy of elli60, free photo

Since the nineteen seventies, there had been a problem with flooding in the London Tube in the Ealing area and the neighborhoods around it.  Nothing the City did worked to stop it.  But in 2023, the city introduced five beavers to Paradise Fields, which this year had eight beavers.  There was no flooding problem in the Tube or the neighborhoods this year even though there were torrential rains.  The dams and wetlands the beavers created held the water.

We have had occasional flooding in the Southwest part of our city on the South side of the Rogue River.  Public Works Director Jason Canady told me that they are staying on top of it, but he is intrigued with the idea.

It might take longer than in London; we might have to buy land near the Redwood Highway or Redwood Avenue and plant a lot of fast-growing willows, poplars and big-leaf maples.  But our river will be cleaner once the dams are built and the chances of flooding will be greatly reduced.  We don’t even need to go far for beavers, as they live in our river and make their homes in its banks.

2-minute speech to Grants Pass City Council, 6/17/26

 published at GardenGrantsPass.blogspot.com.

Posted on Facebook, Nextdoor and X.com

 

 Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener          541-955-9040              rycke@gardener.com

Apologies for the center alingment; Blogger gets stubborn about correcting it.

Man changed climate three times

 

The mid-20th century was the golden age of the sprinkler in cities and suburbs around the world.

           Mankind changed the climate and ecosystems of North America and much of the world for the worse by killing beaver and many other creatures over three hundred years.  Bounties were put on wolves and big cats to save cows and sheep for ranchers and deer for human hunters, until deer overpopulated our wild lands and ate the vegetation as high as they could reach, standing on their hind legs.  And then they starved.*

But in the Twentieth century, we slowly changed the climate of the whole world for the better, making it moister and more moderate, by increasingly irrigating with sprinklers after we started building water treatment plants.  These were followed by sewage treatment plants to keep our rivers and lakes cleaner and reduce diseases.

          We began to take on the role of beavers in watering the land and moderating weather, even as we cut trees, dredged and straightened rivers, and put bounties on predators and beavers.  We watered our cities to keep us safe from fire, with sprinklers that threw water in the air and all over plants and ground.  This evaporated millions of gallons of water per day in Grants Pass in summer, when it was most needed, making clouds and rain.  Water also transpired through the plants we grew and added to the humidity and rainfall. 

Watering deep enough to keep lawns and gardens healthy percolated water into aquifers, along with rainfall, that fed wells for those out of reach of city water pipes, irrigating farms and rural residences.  Leaky irrigation ditches fed wells, too.

We didn’t know what we were doing to our climate.  Like beavers, we were just making our habitat safe and more productive for us.  We didn’t even think about how much our watering benefited other people and creatures who lived near us and far away, as its vapor spread out, made rain, which evaporated and blew on the prevailing wind over mountains, to join vapor generated on the other side, adding to rain there as well, rolling East, city by city and every farm between.

The eighties were considered a wet decade.  It was the height of sprinkler irrigation. Nineteen eighty-six was the first year we heard two nonscientific, nonsensical themes all over the media: burning fossil fuels is causing global warming from too much carbon dioxide; and fresh water is a scarce and precious resource that we must conserve.  Worldwide, we eventually bought this nonsense, which has had serious consequences.

 

*A Sand County Almanac, by Aldo Leopold, from memory.

Speech to the Josephine County Commissioners and the Grants Pass City Council, 9-15-2021

 published at GardenGrantsPass.blogspot.com

Like Ratepayers for Fair Water and Sewer Pricing on Facebook

 Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener    541-955-9040   rycke@gardener.com