Thanks for the opportunity to ask for help here. My neighborhood has a 4-5 acre stormwater pond that's home to plenty of wildlife. But the beavers are making life miserable by clogging the vertical riser. It is a 13' round concrete structure with a 48" round vortex cap. It empties through a 60' barrel that runs under the berm, to a culvert emptying into a local watershed. The beaver do not obstruct the culvert, surprisingly. They seem to be swimming up under the vortex cap and depositing sticks, etc. Last year the riser ended up 18" underwater and heavy rain triggered the emergency spillway. Hydroexcavation was needed to unclog the riser. This year, the beavers are back at their antics.
We engaged a trapper last year but is there any other solution to trapping year-after-year? The 'beaver deceivers' and Clemson pond levelers only seem to address managing water levels at beaver-made dams and not clogged vertical standpipes - is that right?
Thank you for any advice! POM in Tidewater, Virginia

Mother Nature does what she does... simple answer, they need to be removed-alive or other-wise. I know that's a touchy subject but at what point does your dam integrity become compromised?

It's a dam problem no matter how you cut it....


Welcome to Pond Boss, POM!

Fortunately, the dam is in good shape and the emergency spillway has been repaired. We're just tired of the beaver activity and paying $$ to keep the water flowing properly. Looking for the best investment for long term maintenance.
Thanks for the replies.

I am not completely picturing what you have but I think I see it, is there a way to reconfigure the whole inlet, like say maybe removing the vortex cap and redoing the the top of the (I'm assuming you meant 13") vertical pipe? we had a similar problem with a CMP coming in thru the dam at an angle for the overflow and it was cut off too close to the dam and the beavers would pile up mud and sticks and plug the end off, we would come by semi regular and dip it out with a mini excavator which was a pita. after several near catastrophes from water getting too high, we extended the over flow on out another 10" into the pond which resulted in the end being way up off the bottom, too high for them to build it up to it, or at least it hasn't occurred to them yet, then we cut the end of the pipe back on a 45% on the bottom side of the pipe where they cant lay any thing on it, knock on wood, they haven't touched it in several yrs yet. Good Luck!

Actually, the riser is 13 feet tall and the vortex cap weighs about 1,000 pounds. We had a hole cut in the top (and finished off with a traffic grade grate) so that we could access the riser for cleaning. We think the beaver are swimming up under the cap and depositing debris down the pipe. But I'm still wondering about the efficacy of the pond levelers for our particular situation. Would they fool the animals as they attempt to stop the flow of water?