Workers clad in chest-high waders used brute force to continue breaking up a beaver dam clogging Beaver Dam Ditch near Blaine Street and 93rd Avenue in Crown Point.
Using rakes and shovels, the men stood in knee- to waist-high water chipping away at the sediment and hay that made the foundation for the dam — more than 40 feet long — that was backing up water and impeding drainage in the surrounding area.
Three beavers were trapped and relocated from the site before the demolition began, Lake County Surveyor Bill Emerson Jr. said.
If the beavers were not relocated prior to breaking up the dam April 4, they would simply rebuild it, often overnight, defeating the hard work of the laborers and vexing nearby residents whose yards would not drain properly during rains, he said.
“That’s how we find out about the dams,” Emerson said.
The area where the dam was located was about a half mile from the street in a wetland, hidden by trees and well out of the view of the neighboring subdivision. Until water starts backing up and residents call to complain about drainage issues, dams like this one go unnoticed and are left to grow, officials said.
BJ Zandstra, assistant drainage administrator, is the man responsible for dealing with the dams when they are discovered. Zandstra said this particular structure — based on its impressive size — was likely a couple seasons old.
“They can build them fast,” Zandstra said.
Once a beaver takes up residence in an area, it does not take long for a dam to be built. Beavers build dams in slow-moving, shallow streams to create ponds that are used to surround their homes to keep them safe from predators, according to a post on livescience.com. Beavers are slow on land and use the pond, stream and other channels they create to navigate their habitat in search of the plants and trees they eat and new wood to expand their dams.
While some species of beaver build lodges, most Indiana beavers build a modified bank burrow, according to the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. What appeared to be a modified bank burrow was located about 100 feet away from the dam.
Prior to visiting the dam site, workers had removed the branches that topped the sediment mound. Large piles of branches were left on the banks of the creek awaiting cleanup. Zandstra said if there were beavers remaining in the area, they would not re-use the wood removed from the dam.
“They would find all new wood,” he said, pointing to the many trees that surrounded the site.
Dams can pose particular problems for drainage officials since they largely go unnoticed. Daniel Gossman, senior drainage administrator, said the county removes about 40 to 50 beaver dams a year throughout the countywide drainage system.
After this particular dam is removed, Gossman said he expects it will be rebuilt by new beavers in the next couple years.
“It’s an ideal location,” he said, but it is not the only location the beaver exists. Gossman said they are spread out countywide in places as suburban as Highland or where things are more open such as Cady Marsh Ditch.
“They are not exclusive to rural areas. They can adapt,” he said.
According to the Indiana Department of Natural Resources website, beavers were once rare in Indiana. The species was reintroduced to the Jasper-Pulaski Fish & Wildlife Area in 1935 when the Indiana Department of Conservation obtained a few breeding pairs from Wisconsin and released them there.
Some of the beavers eventually moved to other counties, and others were trapped and released in other parts of the state. Today beavers are found in almost every one of Indiana’s 92 counties, according to the DNR.
Carrie Napoleon is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
