LIBERY LAKE, WA - We’ve all heard about the state of Washington’s severe budget crisis. That could interfere with the state’s ability to solve another long-term problem facing the Inland Northwest: not enough water for summer irrigation and recreation. There are big ideas are on the table, such as building a new dam. But it’s hard to imagine the state can afford that in the current economy. Now, one Spokane environmental group is thinking small. Correspondent Doug Nadvornick reports on a new push to bring back a Northwest icon: beavers.

I’m walking along a trail that is along Liberty Creek, which is a creek that feeds Liberty Lake, which is about 20 miles east of Spokane. And I’m told that somewhere around here there is a little beaver dam. Yes! There is a dam that’s, oh I don’t know, about three feet high, maybe 15 feet long. There’s lots of sticks been pulled here from downed trees. There’s little bits of water that are moving through kind of the middle, so it’s not exactly watertight. Look at the reservoir. My goodness! Goes back 100 or 200 yards. Just this little dam is holding back an immense amount of water.

Environmentalists at the Lands Council believe that, oh, a million or so of these little reservoirs would satisfy Washington’s water storage needs. The group’s Brian Walker says a bunch of these smaller dams would be far better than building a couple more Grand Coulee Dams.

Walker: “They would be massive dams. Huge price tags. Major amounts of outlay for upkeep. So let the beavers do their natural thing. Let them build the dam. Let them maintain the dam and store the water for us.”

Walker says Washington’s Department of Ecology is intrigued enough that it has given the Lands Council 30-thousand dollars. The group will study whether the state should incorporate beavers into its official water policy.

O’Brien: “OK. Welcome to the Working Beavers Forum. I’m Mary O’Brian with Grand Canyon Trust.”

Part of that study includes this conference in an old lodge above Liberty Lake. There are about 70 beaver lovers here from several Western states. In the back sits Sherry Tippie. For 24 years, the Colorado woman says she’s been doing exactly what the Lands Council proposes: trapping problem beavers and moving them to places where they could do some good. She says she got involved initially because she wanted to save beavers from being killed off at a golf course near her home.

Tippie: “The more I read, I realized how important they are, especially in the arid West. They stop soil erosion. They improve water quality. They recharge the aquifer. They’ve got family values. They mate for life. They’re monogamous. They keep their babies with them for two years. Most beaver you can pick up. What’s not to love!”

Well, plenty of things, actually, according to Ray Entz. He directs the wildlife department for the Kalispel Tribe in northeastern Washington.

Entz: “Beavers aren’t necessarily your friend because they dam up the stream and raise the lake level and the lake raises into your yard and your house, et cetera. So in some cases, natural activity by beavers is not necessarily a good thing.”

But Entz isn’t entirely anti-beaver. He works with landowners to move beavers from places where they’re destructive and exile them to places where they can be useful. For example, migrating fish aren’t too fond of beaver dams.

Entz: “And so we have removed dams in those kinds of situations and tried to translocate those beavers into areas where they would be more beneficial than detrimental to what we’re trying to do in restoration work.”

In that sense, Entz is a believer in what the Lands Council wants to do.

But is the environmental group’s dream a tad ambitious? Brian Walker envisions a million beavers practicing their craft in the region’s streams. Are there enough places to put them where they’re not mucking up someone’s business or their front lawn? Walker doesn’t know, but he believes there’s great potential.

Walker: “There’s a lot of public land out there where there’s a lot of streams that don’t have beaver on those. So we’re thinking that we can work with these government agencies to move those beavers into those prime habitat areas.”

It’s anyone’s guess whether beavers will soon be damming up a stream near you. But at a time when Washington is in deep financial trouble, the idea of a bunch of industrious beavers working for free may be more appealing than an expensive public works project.

Copyright 2009 Spokane Public Radio

Listen