A beaver family has taken up residence on Lake Walter on Blounts Creek, 0.5 km upstream from my house in suburban Fayetteville, NC. Their efforts have doubled the depth the lake! This was originally posted in the Spring of 2016.

——————————————————————————

Welcome to the neighborhood guys! I like the new vistas that have resulted.

——————————————————————————

Here is what they built to increase the lake depth from ~2 ft to ~4 ft.

Before they came, the lake was at the level of the pipe in the this photograph.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

\

——————————————————————————

Here is what they eat (sorry about the trash my furry friends).

——————————————————————————

Here is where they sleep – not the ugly orange contraption that surrounds my legs – rather the beautiful palace just above it.

——————————————————————————

Here is where much of the water now flows out of the lake (and where the dam breach occurred on 10/8/16). This is looking south across  Lake Club Drive from its north bank. The lake is in the background.

The planks were temporarily installed by the PWC so that a large trailer could cross the dam so that neighborhood sanitary sewage lines could be repaired.

——————————————————————————

This photo shows my kayak atop a channel through which all the neighborhood sewage was being pumped during the sewage line repairs.

——————————————————————————

I don’t expect my neighbors will let the beaver stay long. I like having them here. But, if their structure fails catastrophically, I might potentially loose much of my back yard to erosion – and I have neighbors that might potentially loose their entire homes.

——————————————————————————

Addendum, 10/9/16.  Lake Walter Dam  failed catastrophically, yesterday,  after we got 14″ of rain in 18 hours from Hurricane Matthew. I think that the beaver’s modifications shown above played no role in the dam failure. See this post for details.