Old Lyme ― Beavers continue to be blamed for flooding around Black Hall Pond as residents renew their call for help from town officials.

Terry Balough, who lives next to the pond, said fluctuating water levels over the past several years have submerged her dock and threatened the gazebo that started out 10 feet from the water’s edge. Her neighbor Blair Tinkle said his septic system is at risk if the water gets any higher.

Their voices are among those going back to at least 2019, when Boughton Road resident Dave Berggren first went public with complaints that his house was sinking into the waterlogged earth. He said water from the 12.6-acre pond can’t drain into the adjacent Black Hall River because beaver dams block the flow of water.

Nicole Kabel, who moved to the same street almost two years ago for its natural beauty, told selectmen earlier this month that the water levels are confounding residents around the pond.

“There are times when it is lower,” she said. “We are not sure who, how or why it becomes lower.”

The flooding several years ago was attributed to a beaver dam on Old Lyme Land Trust property in a private section of Jericho Preserve. The dam was dismantled so the water in the river could flow again. Land trust officials at the time said they weren’t aware of any other obstructions.

The river is narrow, winding and swampy in places. It’s what one fisheries biologist concerned with restoring the formerly abundant alewife population described as “a very beavered system” because of all the activity taking place there.

Local regulations require a permit for a property owner to breach a dam, and state law requires a permit to trap beavers. Trapping beavers generally means killing them in Connecticut, as the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection says trapping nuisance beavers is not considered a viable option.

Residents and officials said it’s unclear where or how many beaver dams there may be in the most inaccessible areas of the river.

Tinkle this week reiterated to selectmen the matter is too unwieldy for the neighbors to solve on their own. He called on town officials to undertake a professional study to determine why pond levels are so erratic.

He suggested an assessment of water quality, water levels and flow, as well as beaver activity on the pond and the river that feeds it.

First Selectman Tim Griswold has long maintained property owners are responsible for dealing with beaver activity on their land.

He said following the selectmen’s meeting he realizes some people “want Big Brother to make things better.”

Who owns the pond?

One big question is who owns the pond, according to Griswold.

Selectwoman Martha Shoemaker, who has been working with the Boughton Road residents, said examining the deeds associated with each property along the water body could show how far the properties extend into the water.

State law 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.

Town Land Use Coordinator Eric Knapp said he’s still working on figuring out who owns the pond.

Berggren this week said nothing has changed over the past four years in terms of his soggy property or local action to address it.

“There isn’t anything really new,” he said. “We’re kicking a dead horse is what we’re doing. And expecting the horse to get up and do something.”

Mike Callahan of Massachusetts-based Beaver Solutions in separate reports issued to the Old Lyme Land Trust in 2020 and to Tinkle in 2021 said the only way to “return to the pre-beaver water level” is to kill the beavers and breach the dams.

Callahan said the type of fences and piping he has used to resolve over 1,900 cases since 1998 won’t work here because beavers can easily build elsewhere in the shallow stream.

Land Trust President Sabine O’Donnell in a letter to Tinkle said the organization took its own measurements before and after the dam was dismantled. A report estimated the dam could have raised the water level up to 14 inches.

“It was determined that the water level at Black Hall Pond dropped only approximately six inches after the dam breach, and no other dams were found along Bucky Brook all the way to Black Hall Pond,” O’Donnell wrote.

Callahan in 2021 told Tinkle he paddled a kayak from the pond about a half mile down the brook and found two old dams with 4 to 6 inches of water over the top that will likely become active again if the water level goes down.

‘Beavered out’

Tinkle in his message to selectmen noted there’s precedent for local commissions getting involved in pond concerns. He pointed to an effort by the DEEP and Yale University to stock the pond with alewife.

DEEP fisheries biologist Kevin Job said he agreed last year to stock the pond with alewife at the request of Gary Gregory, a resident who has been involved in multiple groups and commissions concerned with the environment. That spring, the state agency trucked in 1,700 fish from Bride Lake in East Lyme to stock the pond.

Job said he committed to stocking the pond only after he determined there weren’t any visible, active beaver dams that would prevent the mature alewife, whose numbers have been greatly reduced, from returning to Bucky Brook.

It takes three years for the fish spawned in the river to return, according to Job. That’s when he’ll start getting concerned if there are dams big enough to prevent the fish from making the trip. Until then, he said his agency doesn’t have the time or resources to deal with beavers.

“We have over 70 fishways across the state. We’re all over the place. So until the returns are going to come from our stockings, we can’t really put any time into going and looking for beaver dams on private property. And that’s what it sounds like this is at this point,” he said.

The policy in the fisheries division is to work with the beavers, according to Job. Even when the fish return in 2025, DEEP staff members will not be breaching dams or trapping beavers.

That means it may turn out the area is too “beavered out” for the restocking program to succeed, he said.

Job recounted speaking to representatives of the land trust about the importance of keeping the area clear of obstructions that could affect fish migration.

“This is a really great opportunity, but it’s got to be teamwork,” he said.

O’Donnell this week said the organization has encouraged residents on Black Hall Pond to hire a beaver trapper as needed and gave them permission to have beavers removed from the Jericho Preserve.

Griswold this week said he’d speak with Knapp, the land use coordinator, about whether the town should help resolve the issue.

Knapp in his email to The Day reiterated trapping as the most viable solution compared to installing pipes and fencing.

“As a vegetarian, I get no pleasure in offering that as a solution, but the process of finding the right engineering device, getting it approved by the wetlands commission, getting someone to install it, and finally, getting someone to maintain it would likely take all summer,” he said. “People are looking for a quicker and easier way to solve this problem.”

e.regan@theday.com