Old Lyme — A Boughton Road resident is pointing to his soggy waterfront property and mold-infested home as evidence that beavers are still contributing to high water levels in Black Hall Pond, but not everyone agrees.

Dave Berggren says the beaver activity is occurring in the Black Hall River, commonly known as Bucky Brook, on the Old Lyme Land Trust's Jericho Preserve. He alleged the industrious rodents have caused water levels to go up more than 2 feet since he first saw water encroaching on his property six years ago, though it has receded some since its high point in 2019 and early 2020.

He said it would still be at its high point if he hadn't been "tearing dams out for years" on the land trust's property.

Old Lyme Land Trust Secretary Lea Harty wrote in an email that the organization was last aware of beavers causing obstructions on its property about a year ago. She said the group applied for and received a local Inland Wetlands permit to breach the dam, but found it already had been torn apart by "a trespasser."

"It has not since reappeared," Harty said of the dam.

Berggren and Lee Detwiler, his former neighbor who moved to Pennsylvania but keeps in touch with him every day, argue the beavers moved deeper into the swamp to build a new dam.

"When I started making their life miserable, they had to look for a different place," Berggren said.

Detwiler added that by June of this year, there was again evidence of beaver activity in the same spot Berggren used to tear up.

Local Inland Wetlands regulations specify a permit is required to breach a dam in wetlands and watercourses. Land use coordinator Dan Bourret said the broad definition of regulated activity prohibits the removal of "any obstruction" without a permit.

Berggren said the beavers — and what he described as the refusal of the land trust and two successive first selectmen to stop their destruction — have "in essence destroyed my life."

"My septic system is compromised. I can flush the toilet once a day. Washing machine? Got to be real careful. One small load maybe once every other week," he said. "I told them I'm sick of living like a goddamn refugee, for chrissakes."

He blamed moisture in the ground for rendering unstable an addition to his house, which had already been constructed when he bought the place in 1964. He pointed to a sagging entrance built on piers and the resulting gap in the storm door. Because the walls of his home are now being bent due to a shifting foundation, he said fissures created in the damp walls allow mold to flourish.

According to advocates at the national nonprofit Beaver Institute, dams and wetlands built by beavers are as biologically productive and diverse as coral reefs and rainforests. But the group also acknowledges they can cause landowners significant damage.

Through its Connecticut Beaver Initiative, the institute has provided grant funding in area towns to resolve "beaver-human conflicts" using nonlethal methods. In 2020, that included opening a blocked spillway in Niantic through a pond leveler that uses a pipe to direct water through the dam so it can continue flowing downstream. The group also funded a project to open an Old Saybrook driveway culvert with a fence and pipe flow device sometimes referred to as a beaver deceiver or beaver baffler.

The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection said beaver dams can negatively affect natural resources by serving as barriers to migrating fish and choking out rare plant and animal habitats. It cites lethal trapping as the most effective option for dealing with beavers.

Berggren recounted that Bucky Brook used to teem with alewife — commonly referred to as Buckies — until the fish were blocked out by dams. According to the Long Island Sound Study, the once-plentiful river herring would migrate from the tributaries and rivers, through Long Island Sound to the Atlantic Ocean. But their numbers have severely declined amid overfishing, pollution and loss of access to their freshwater spawning grounds because of dams and culverts.

Berggren said environmental advocates who focus on beavers as such a beneficial part of the ecosystem ignore realities like the disappearing alewife.

"These jerks, they can't see the forest because all the trees are in the way," he said.

Harty said the land trust has not observed any significant damming "in the recent past" in areas previously subject to beaver activity. Nor has the agency recently inspected other areas of Bucky Brook that traverse the Jericho Preserve — "in fact, some sections are nearly impenetrable," she wrote.

She said the land trust last year used a trapper to remove some beavers once it was determined that beaver deceiver devices would not have worked in the location of the then-existing dam.

A land trust policy adopted in July 2019 states the group will first explore nonlethal interventions if beavers on its land are negatively affecting neighbors. If those methods fail, the policy specifies the organization may consider destroying the dam "or even trapping."

"That said, we have not had any recent contacts from property owners on Black Hall Pond about concerns relating to beavers which may be on the Jericho Preserve," Harty said.

Berggren acknowledged he has not personally interacted with the land trust in a couple of years.

Further up Boughton Road is resident Terry Balough, who brought the beaver issue to the Board of Selectmen in 2019 when flooding had swallowed most of her dock and was threatening the gazebo that had started out about 10 feet from the water's edge.

"It's better now, but it's not where it needs to be," she said. The end of her dock is still submerged and she can't mow the grass in the area because the ground is too moist.

"We don't have a problem with the beavers," she said. "We have a problem with people who don't want to control them and make sure they're where they should be."

Both Berggren and Balough cited another neighbor with complaints about a submerged dock.

First Selectman Tim Griswold last week said the town does not own any land along Bucky Brook between Black Hall Pond and Whippoorwill Road, "but obviously we want to be helpful."

He noted the Open Space Commission is looking at installing beaver deceivers on the Bartholomew Open Space that abuts Buttonball Road and on the McCulloch Family Open Space, both of which are affected by the Black Hall River in areas south of Jericho Preserve. July meeting minutes show the commission authorized spending up to $2,000 for the devices on each property.

The commission has a policy to allow beaver activity as long as it doesn't threaten critical infrastructure or private property.

Griswold said he hopes the private land trust also continues to consider methods like beaver deceivers.

"If it became a perennial problem, I guess that would be an answer," he said. "However, these critters can put a dam in anywhere they want. So, if they get discouraged, they may move somewhere else and create a new dam. So it's a very fluid thing."

State statute gives towns the authority to clear waterways causing flooding, even if those waterways are not on town property, and to recoup the cost from the landowner.

The first selectman reiterated the land trust statement that the organization hasn't been aware of any beaver activity for a year. He said volunteers resolved the problem and kept the water flowing, though he acknowledged levels are still higher than Berggren thinks they should be.

"So, case closed," Griswold said. "Now, if new activity occurs and the water levels increase and so forth, that's a new situation. But I haven't been alerted that there is a new problem."

For Berggren, it's not a new problem but an ongoing one. And he blamed Griswold for not standing up for taxpayers that the frustrated resident said have fewer rights than beavers.

"His duty is to oversee the town and the people of the town," Berggren said. "Here's an obvious big problem and he turns his back on it and says it ain't there, when it obviously is."

e.regan@theday.com