How To Deal With Beavers That Cause Flooding

The Clemson Beaver Pond Leveler:


The Clemson Beaver Pond Leveler (Figure 1) was developed to meet two goals: 1) The need to suppress the problem of flooding of agricultural and timber lands and 2) To maintain or improve some of the benefits derived from beaver ponds and associated plant communities while preventing extensive flood damage. The Clemson Beaver Pond Leveler device should help reduce flooding, manipulate pond levels and solve road culvert plugging problems. The device consists of perforated PVC pipe that is encased in heavy gauge hog wire. This part is placed upstream of the dam or blocked culvert, in the main run or deepest part of the stream. It is connected to non-perforated sections of PVC pipe which are run through the dam or culvert to a water control structure downstream. It is effective because the beavers cannot detect the sound of flowing water as the pond or culvert drains and therefore they won't try to plug the pipe.

Materials	Quantity
10' section, 10" diameter. PVC pipe	1
PVC cap for 10" diameter. PVC pipe	1
10" x 8" PVC pipe reducer coupling	1
86" sections, 3/4" diameter plastic roll pipe (water pipe), 160 psi grade	4
1/4" metal couplings for roll pipe	4
1⁄4" x 2" galvanized eyebolts	16
1⁄4" galvanized nuts	16
1⁄4" galvanized washers	16
16" sections, 8 gauge galvanized wire (medium hardness)	16
96" sections, 2" x 4" 12 1⁄2 gauge galvanized welded wire	2
Crab trap clamps (fasteners)	2 lbs

Figure 1. Diagram of the Clemson Beaver Pond Leveler.