With bridge, beavers keep dam at Sam Creek
The U.S. Forest Services is inclined to build an overpass where Forest Road 57 meets the creek
April 2, 2004
JIM KADERA
ESTACADA -- Don't count on discouraging eager beavers.
With that in mind, the U.S. Forest Service is leaning toward building a bridge rather than trying to get rid of a beaver dam that has caused washouts of a key road to recreation areas in the Mount Hood National Forest the past two years.
The agency is weighing options, but the most likely decision will be to bridge Sam Creek along Forest Road 57, a popular route to Timothy and Harriet lake recreation areas, said Glenda Woodcock, spokeswoman for the Clackamas River Ranger District based in Estacada.
The Forest Service expects the road detour to continue for at least one year, until the bridge is built. The detour is expected to reduce travel through Estacada, businesses that sell to campers, fishermen and other recreationists.
Storm runoff during the winter of 2002-03 breached a longtime beaver dam on Sam Creek, and a debris torrent washed out part of Forest Road 57 at the creek crossing 3,200 feet downstream. The road crosses over a culvert rather than a bridge.
Access from Oregon 224 to the recreation areas was detoured over narrower side roads with more curves until the damage was repaired last summer at a cost of $73,500.
On Feb. 2 this year, a Forest Service crew found the Sam Creek crossing again had been washed out. The road was covered with snow and wasn't being used by motorists.
The detour from Road 57 is seven miles on Forest Roads 4630-31. While that adds only six-tenths of a mile to the trip, the narrow roads are not safe for large recreational vehicles. The Forest Service has advised taking U.S. 26 to Forest Road 42, a route often used by Portland recreationists.
Woodcock explained why beavers will be allowed to continue patching their dam when it breaks.
"It had been stable for a long time until last year, so we assumed it would hold up well," she said. "If that's an area where beavers want to be, we could take out their dam and it might be there again the next day."
The downstream end of the culvert was broken off by this year's washout, but the remaining portion is open and the creek is flowing through, Woodcock said.
The Forest Service is studying alternatives to solve the problem. Bridging the creek should eliminate the beaver dam as a threat, she said, but there is no cost estimate yet, and the agency has no money in its 2004 budget to build the bridge.
Larry Reed, the ranger district's recreation assistant, said visits to Harriet and Timothy lakes did not decrease last year. However, more visitors than usual took the U.S. 26 route instead of going through Estacada, he said.
The last traffic count taken on Road 57 was in 2002, when the average was 209 vehicles daily.
Ray Akre, whose family has owned the Estacada Tackle Shop for 28 years, said the 2003 detour reduced his sales to campers and trout fishermen, and he expects another weak spring and summer. "Beer and cigarettes are keeping me in business," he said.
The washouts come on top of a state decision several years ago to stop stocking trout in upper Clackamas basin streams. Akre and Reed agreed that fewer anglers now use national forest campgrounds near those streams.
Jim Kadera: 503-294-5919; jimkadera@news.oregonian.com