ATHOL — The discussion on how best to address the twin problems of beavers and aquatic weeds at Lake Ellis continued at the Athol Selectboard meeting on Tuesday, June 7. The issues were first brought to the board two weeks ago by John Robertson, who has a residence near the shores of the lake. While invasive weeds are choking the lake, beavers had constructed dams on outflows from the lake, causing water levels to rise, thus threatening damage to those properties along the lake.
Town Manager Shaun Suhoski told the board that, since the May 17 meeting of the board, meetings were held which included Public Works Director Dick Kilhart, Assistant DPW Director Paul Raskevitz, Robertson, and representatives of a weed control company. Discussions were also held with state and town officials regarding steps for beaver control.
One problem has to do with beavers damming a culvert that runs under Route 2 and backing up waters flowing out of the lake.
“Based on recent actions,” Suhoski said, “although we don’t have a firm commitment it will continue, an individual from MassDOT (Department of Transportation) has been responsive, has said what they’re going to do, and then have done what they said with respect to the culverts under Route 2. We think we have the state on board to maintain, monitor, complete ‘beaver deceiver.’ They’ve already cleared the debris. But the issue is much more complicated than that.
“We had a good discussion with the Board of Health agent, because they would have to issue the beaver permit, as to whether we were going to ‘harvest’ them or remove debris. On the town side, what we’re proposing is to continue on with the budget we hope Town Meeting will approve on Monday, which has an allocation for wildlife management. We may have to supplement that next year. We also have to pin down MassDOT on their portion.”
Suhoski said he was looking into whether the company retained by the state, Beaver Solutions, can do debris removal as well as trapping and removing beavers. If possible, he said, the town might be able to secure that vendor to “take action” on property, the owner of which is currently uncertain. The property in question is behind Ellinwood Country Club.
Robertson expressed some frustration that no concrete plan for dealing with the beaver problem had been developed by the town in the three weeks since the previous Selectboard meeting. Robertson, who was at the meeting with town officials, paraphrased Raskevitz as saying, “‘We’re going to contract it out to take care of the problem.’ But we don’t know if the contractor is even willing to do it or if it’s in his scope of work.”
He said accessing the property, which is covered with water, may be a challenge but residents around Lake Ellis want to see the beavers and debris removed from the area — challenge or not.
Kilhart told the board that town Health Agent Deb Vondal also participated in the meeting and noted, “That with the level the lake is currently, that she wouldn’t even authorize activity … at this point. There’s a point in time that we would certainly be able to facilitate — if the board so chose — spending public resources on either private property or property unknown. And it wouldn’t just be specific to that area — it could be townwide.
“The board, in essence, has to facilitate the potential for additional funds on or at that location and other locations. But the number that’s in that budget has only been in there for a couple of years. It’s $5,000, and we spent that money, historically, in many locations in town. But the person we have doing that now does not deconstruct beaver dams.”
Kilhart also pointed out that, due in large part to MassDOT trapping and removing beavers on its property around Route 2, as well as cleaning out debris from culverts that run under the highway, the level of Lake Ellis has dropped “significantly from where it has been in the past.”
That, said Robertson, still leaves Lake Ellis residents in a bind due to lack of a long-term plan.
“Once the state does what they say — as long as they do it,” he said, “the water is going to flow through there. They’ve solved their problem. Now it’s going to create more of a problem for us because the beavers are going to say, ‘Well, if we can’t stop it there, let’s stop it somewhere else.’
“And if we don’t have (a plan) in place and have all these strategies figured out we’re going to be back to having the same problems we’ve had in the past.”
The board asked Robertson, Kilhart, Raskevitz and others to meet again to come up with a plan for addressing the problem and to report back to the board in a month.
As with beavers, dealing with the weed problem will take both time and money.
Kilhart pointed out that in 2017, $36,000 was spent to treat Lake Ellis.
“So, you’re looking at a pretty good chunk of money to do a full-bodied lake treatment for weed control,” said he said. “Remember, that’s only going to treat two invasive species: milfoil and bladder wort. The one concern I have: if we eradicate these, what happens when something else come in? This is a process, and the SOLitude (Lake Management) folks told us that we’d be looking at a couple of years of full lake treatment, and then they would follow up by doing some sort of spot treatment in and around the lake. But they did say it would never go away.”
Kilhart explained that treatments are ineffective if done late in the year, suggesting treatment should get underway as of May 1, 2023. He said the town would need to file a notice of intent with the Conservation Commission before proceeding with the effort, and that funds for the work will need to be found.
The board voted to instruct Kilhart to file a notice of intent with the Conservation Commission as soon as possible. At the DPW director’s suggestion, the board told him to include treatment of Silver Lake in the application.
Greg Vine can be reached at gvineadn@gmail.com