Last week the town public works notified us that the culvert carrying the creek which drains the beaver bog and provides endless entertainment for the blogdogs, will be replaced because it has rusted out and presents several negative environmental issues. Our analysis has detected no real physical problems with the infrastructure; there is significant rust but the there is no sign of collapse: it is (was) not “rusted out.”

The most significant issue is in flooding situations where the creek’s volume exceeds the culvert’s capacity, resulting in the upstream water level to rise to the roadway surface (the culvert goes underneath our local road about 150 ft south of our driveway entrance). When this happens, the road’s shoulder begins to erode. Since they are replacing a 4ft diameter culvert with a 4ft diameter culvert, this peak-volume-in-excess-of-capacity issue is not resolved. This condition has been serious only two or three times within the last twenty years. The stone rip-rap and shoulder reinforcements will help but this could have been done without a new culvert.

We agree that the rusty culvert presents environmental issues; is excessive iron in the lake a serious issue (we don’t know)? Was this a critical town expenditure? We don’t think so.