Town Takes Action to Lower Water Level at Mills Pond

With the increasing water depths in Mills Pond, the town recently worked with personnel from Avon to reduce the population of beavers and increase the flow through a portion of the dam at its lower end.

Town officials said some beaver trapping is generally done every few years and said increased water levels were causing drainage problems on Simonds Avenue. The water was also encroaching on the high school property and a little league field, officials said.

“It’s gotten to the point where we had to do something,” Public Works Director Robert Martin said. “We don’t take it lightly and follow the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection procedures.”  

The town of Avon has two DEEP certified nuisance wildlife officers that trapped the beavers, Martin said.

Martin said the action is unfortunate and feels beavers help create ponds that benefit many other species but as the population grows, it’s harder and harder to control the water levels, he said. 

“At some point you need to control the amount of beavers in there,” Martin said.

While there are Water Level Control Devices that allow increase flows through a dam site, town officials said they followed the most practical solution.

According to its Web site, the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection does not recommend beaver re-location.

“. . . relocation is no longer considered a viable option for alleviating beaver problems in Connecticut. In heavily developed states where beaver populations are abundant and widely distributed, it is highly probable that this technique will create new problems,” the agency’s web site states.

Canton resident Gary Laviana said he is upset by the activity. Laviana said the beavers are remarkable animals but agrees that the population was likely too large. But the town should have done a study, with public input, on the issue rather than rush into action, he said.

Laviana said his biggest concern is the pond. He said the water level could drop too much and the town may have done “irreparable damage to the dam,” causing it to fail given the right circumstances, such as a heavy rain.

“It’s just extremely upsetting to me,” Laviana said.

First Selectman Richard Barlow said he feels the town took appropriate action to protect its infrastructure and property and followed the guidelines for such activity.

Town officials said the goal is not to get rid of the beavers although they do sometimes abandon dams and Martin feels their food supply around the pond is somewhat depleted.

The town’s long-range capital improvement plan also calls for eventual replacement of what’s left of the earthen dam at the site as well as potential spillway reinforcement. Town documents list 2016-2017 as a possible timeline for the project, estimated to cost $215,000.

The documents also state that the dam is considered "low hazard" and any failure "unlikely to cause excessive property damage or loss of life downstream of the dam."