Natures Engineers Versus The Park Service
Kelderhouse Road near Port Oneida bisects two ponds. Beavers have built their lodge in one and their dam in the other. Now, beavers don’t like walking across dry land, so they’ve done their best to connect the two ponds by flooding the road. Repeated attempts to reduce the water over the road, from trenches to culverts, have all been unsuccessful. They beavers have plugged the culverts, the holes drilled in pipes, the grates, and everything else man has tried to prevent flooding.
The Leelanau County Road Commission per the National Park Service has pretty much given up trying to outwit the beavers, and as there is another route to get through, it looks as though the flooding over that section of road is permanent. Score one for nature’s engineer.