We didn’t have to wait too long to test the earthen dam that we built to stop the flooding. A couple of weeks after building the dam, we had two days in a row of constant heavy rain (at least several inches per day).
The completed dam in the dry before the test.
Click through to see how the dam handled the heavy rain.
The dam broke!
About 1/4 of the dam on the south edge washed out and water and debris again poured out into the pastures.
Water and debris flooding out into the pastures (after the dam broke).
The rest of the dam remained intact – although once there is a large section of the dam missing, the overall remaining functionality of 75% of a dam isn’t that great!
The broken section of the dam.
Here is the broken dam in the dry.
The aftermath – the broken dam after it dried up.
We are still formulating a plan for how to repair or replace the dam or what other steps we can take to divert the water.
You need some beavers on your property.
There are some beavers in the area – we saw one swimming in the lake across the street from our house. So far no indication any are coming on to our property. Our creek probably doesn’t have enough water flow for beavers except during heavy rain or snow melt.