Property owners along Clover Creek in Pierce County report flooding, water quality issues, and dried-up creek beds, pointing to beaver dams and unmaintained vegetation on county-owned land as a primary cause.
Bob Trapp’s Tacoma property along the creek used to have acres of lush grass where his dogs could run around off-leash. Now, for much of the year, he says it’s a swamp.
“This whole thing is covered with water,” he said.
When the water recedes in the summer, the land is dry and cracked.
Trapp says it started about six or seven years ago. His parents bought the property nearly 50 years ago, and he’s never seen anything like it. He says the flooding has turned the water in his shallow well brown.
“We have to boil our water, because we don’t know; it stinks like swamp,” he said.
When Trapp started investigating, he says he found tall grass and vegetation, along with beaver dams, choking the creek. He found some of those dams on property for a new development site, but he says most of the issues were on Pierce County-owned land downstream from where he lives. The County owns two parcels along the creek between 20th Avenue East and 25th Avenue East.
Randy Grams, who lives on the other side of the County properties, told KIRO 7 he was dealing with the opposite problem: the creek where he lives has dried up.
“A lot of the trees are drying out and dying,” he said.
Grams is part of the Clover Creek Restoration Alliance, trying to clean things up.
“It’s an uphill battle,” he said. “We’ve tried to get access to some of the properties to go in and clean them up where the creek is degraded and overgrown and has invasive species growing, and they don’t want to see them cooperate.”
KIRO 7 took these concerns to Pierce County.
A spokesperson for the County’s Planning & Public Works Department confirmed beaver dams on their property, but said they suspected additional dams on private properties both upstream and downstream.
“This reach of Clover Creek is very flat, and both high surface water and high groundwater levels are common,” Public Information Specialist Amanda Smith wrote in an email. “The area is designated as a regulated floodplain and a wetland. Elevated water levels can result from multiple factors and are not solely attributable to beaver activity.”
Smith said the County continued to monitor the area and was actively managing it to ensure it supported public benefit, protected natural resources, and appropriately considered local flooding concerns.
“These county-owned properties are allowed to function in a natural state to provide water quality and ecological benefits to the stream,” Smith wrote, adding that shrubs and tall grass help keep water clean and downed trees can help reduce downstream flooding.
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