Wednesday, June 10, 2020 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Commentary...
Sisters
salutes...
Humility in nature
By Scout Ehr
Columnist
The City of Fairview
spent $2.4 million turning
13 acres of land into a Water
Quality Facility. The plan
was to create a simple and
elegant system to filter and
clean stormwater for 965
acres of industrial neighbor-
hood, and what they pulled
off was a wonderfully com-
plex system of narrow, wind-
ing canals that looped back
and forth and drained slowly
through tiny barriers into one
another, cleverly mimicking
natural filtration systems
found in wetlands. The city
was thrilled. This facility
was a masterpiece of human
engineering. At last, man had
mitigated his effect on nature
by mimicking nature.
Then the beavers moved
into the facility.
A family of beavers
arrived all at once in the dead
of night and began construct-
ing dams. The water stopped
flowing through the barriers
altogether, and it stopped
meandering back and forth
through the narrow canals. It
began pooling and changing
the landscape.
Facility maintenance
workers got busy removing
the dams hoping the beavers
would move along. The bea-
vers did anything but move
along and began rebuilding
with what seemed like twice
the resolve.
To justify more drastic
measures, the city needed to
prove that the beavers were
harming the water quality
(E. Coli sprang to everyone9s
mind), but what they found
was far less damning. The
beavers were treating the
water. Studies showed the
dams were filtering twice as
much mercury, copper, lead,
zinc and pesticides than the
human constructed filtra-
tion system. Further study
revealed that the water tem-
perature was cooler and
suitable once again for long
absent salmonids.
The beaver (Castor
canadensis) is the largest
rodent in North America and
is easily recognized by its
aquatic lifestyle, dispropor-
tionately large, orange inci-
sors, and broad, flat waffle-
iron tail. He can voluntarily
seal his nostrils and ears shut
and slide a transparent mem-
brane over his eyes render-
ing himself a plush, airtight
submarine.
The beauty of the beaver
is its precise dam construc-
tion: beavers take such care
in their repairs and main-
tenance that water passage
through the dam is slowed
to a mere trickle. And that
water is filtered through
rich, peaty soils, the leaflets
of aspen bark, the gummed-
up foliage of native shrubs
and the fibrous heartwoods
of local pine ultimately ren-
dering it pure and clean.
And, to keep the pressure
of water from crumbling the
dam, beavers see to it that
somehow the water filters
through many different lev-
els in accordance with the
flow of the original stream.
Mild flows can be stemmed
with straight dams and heavy
flows with curved dams.
Humility is always forc-
ibly earned, but never more
so in nature. All the efforts
of civil engineers and under-
standing of ecologists is sev-
ered with the gnawing of a
few beaver teeth. I might
have argued that it would
have been more effective
to cash 2.4 million in single
bills and have the beavers
use it to pack mud between
the willow branches.
When I was 15 and work-
ing at a camp in Corbett,
we used to while away our
bright summer evenings with
a game we called <canoe
wrestling.= Two competitors
would sit inside an alumi-
num canoe and push off from
the dock into the network
Sisters Habitat for Human-
ity says thank-you Washing-
ton Federal (WaFd) Bank for
the $2,000 grant that will help
them finish the Neal family9s
home within the next couple
of months.
It9s partners like WaFd
Bank who make it possible
for Sisters Habitat to build
homes, community, and hope.
Many thanks!
PHOTO BY SCOUT EHR
A beaver dam in Fairview, Oregon.
of shallow ponds that were
there only by the productiv-
ity of beavers. The goal was
simply to stand and throw
the other girl out of the canoe
while you remain inside. I
was magnificently sturdy
due to my disproportionately
stout legs and I had yet to be
matched.
Then one evening my
successor came. She was a
skinny and quiet girl. We
pushed off from the dock
and drifted into the deeper
waters. The other girls
watched from the shore and
began to cheer and chant,
some for and some against
me. We stood, took a moment
to adjust our footing, wide
in a deep squat. I thought I
would sink her easily. But no
sooner had our hands clasped
than I could feel my face hit
the water and my shin scrape
along the aluminum edge of
the canoe. It was over.
I hung there for a moment,
suspended in cold green
water, humiliated. I opened
my eyes. The stagnant water
stung and clouded my vision.
I saw a shadow float past me.
Its smooth back shone murky
gray streaks of light from the
surface before it disappeared
between sunken logs. I came
up to the surface.
<Guys! I saw a beaver!=
Skepticism was the reply.
I was accused of inventing
means to distract from my
failure.
Hope for a child. Change for a nation.
So, I often think how
large aquatic rodents don9t
discern between humbling
civil engineers and hum-
bling self-conscious teenage
girls. Had the beaver sur-
faced when I wanted him to
or moved along when he was
unwanted, there would be no
great cause to sit quietly in
awe of nature, to respect her
ecology, and to stem the tide
of human endeavors.
PHOTO PROVIDED
Marie Clasen of Sisters Habitat
for Humanity (SHH); Christina
Schultz, WaFd manager; Sharlene
Weed, executive director of SHH.
Rochelle Johnson and Jackie
Bradley of WaFd.
We are HIRING for
summer positions!
Conie Miracle is an 8-year-old
girl whose father passed away,
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Your monthly gift of $39 will provide Conie with
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This ad sponsored by The Nugget Newspaper.
9
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