This is an actual letter sent to a man named Ryan DeVries regarding a pond on his property. It was sent by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Quality, State of Pennsylvania . This guy's response is hilarious, but read The State's letter before you get to the response letter.
State of Pennsylvania 's letter to Mr. DeVries:
SUBJECT: DEQ
File No.97-59-0023; T11N; R10W, Sec 20; Lycoming County
Dear Mr. DeVries:
It has come to the attention of the Department of Environmental Quality that there has been recent unauthorized activity on the above referenced parcel of property. You have been certified as the legal landowner and/or contractor who did the following unauthorized activity:
Construction and maintenance of two wood debris dams across the outlet stream of Spring Pond.
A permit must be issued prior to the start of this type of activity.. A review of the Department's files shows that no permits have been issued Therefore, the Department has determined that this activity is in violation of Part 301, Inland Lakes and Streams, of the Natural Resource and Environmental Protection Act, Act 451 of the Public Acts of 1994, being sections 324.30101 to 324.30113 of the Pennsylvania Compiled Laws, annotated.
The Department has been informed that one or both of the dams partially failed during a recent rain event, causing debris and flooding at downstream locations.. We find that dams of this nature are inherently hazardous and cannot be permitted. The Department therefore orders you to cease and desist all activities at this location, and to restore the stream to a free-flow condition by removing all wood and brush forming the dams from the stream channel. All restoration work shall be completed no later than January 31, 2010.
Please notify this office when the restoration has been completed so that a follow-up site inspection may be scheduled by our staff. Failure to comply with this request or any further unauthorized activity on the site may result in this case being referred for elevated enforcement action..
We anticipate and would appreciate your full cooperation in this matter. Please feel free to contact me at this office if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
David L. Price
District Representative and Water Management Division.
=======================================
Here is the actual response sent back by Mr. DeVries:
Re: DEQ File
No.. 97-59-0023; T11N; R10W, Sec. 20; Lycoming County
Dear Mr..Price,
Your certified letter dated 11/17/09 has been handed to me. I am the legal landowner but not the Contractor at 2088 Dagget Lane , Trout Run, Pennsylvania .
A couple of beavers are in the (State unauthorized) process of constructing and maintaining two wood 'debris' dams across the outlet stream of my Spring Pond. While I did not pay for, authorize, nor supervise their dam project, I think they would be highly offended that you call their skillful use of natures building materials 'debris.'
I would like to challenge your department to attempt to emulate their dam project any time and/or any place you choose. I believe I can safely state there is no way you could ever match their dam skills, their dam resourcefulness, their dam ingenuity, their dam persistence, their dam determination and/or their dam work ethic.
These are the beavers/contractors you are seeking. As to your request, I do not think the beavers are aware that they must first fill out a dam permit prior to the start of this type of dam activity.
My first dam question to you is:
(1) Are you trying to discriminate against my Spring Pond Beavers, or
(2) do you require all beavers throughout this State to conform to said dam request?
If you are not discriminating against these particular beavers, through the Freedom of Information Act, I request completed copies of all those other applicable beaver dam permits that have been issued. (Perhaps we will see if there really is a dam violation of Part 301, Inland Lakes and Streams, of the Natural Resource and Environmental Protection Act, Act 451 of the Public Acts of 1994, being sections 324.30101 to 324.30113 of the Pennsylvania Compiled Laws, annotated.)
I have several dam concerns. My first dam concern is, aren't the beavers entitled to legal representation? The Spring Pond Beavers are financially destitute and are unable to pay for said representation -- so the State will have to provide them with a dam lawyer.
The Department's dam concern that either one or both of the dams failed during a recent rain event, causing flooding, is proof that this is a natural occurrence, which the Department is required to protect. In other words, we should leave the Spring Pond Beavers alone rather than harassing them and calling them dam names.
If you want the damed stream 'restored' to a dam free-flow condition please contact the beavers -- but if you are going to arrest them, they obviously did not pay any attention to your dam letter, they being unable to read English.
In my humble opinion, the Spring Pond Beavers have a right to build their unauthorized dams as long as the sky is blue, the grass is green and water flows downstream. They have more dam rights than I do to live and enjoy Spring Pond. If the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection lives up to its name, it should protect the natural resources (Beavers) and the environment (Beavers' Dams).
So, as far as the beavers and I are concerned, this dam case can be referred for more elevated enforcement action right now. Why wait until 1/31/2010? The Spring Pond Beavers may be under the dam ice by then and there will be no way for you or your dam staff to contact/harass them.
In conclusion, I would like to bring to your attention to a real environmental quality, health, problem in the area It is the bears! Bears are actually defecating in our woods. I definitely believe you should be persecuting the defecating bears and leave the beavers alone. If you are going to investigate the beaver dam, watch your dam step! The bears are not careful where they dump!
Being unable to comply with your dam request, and being unable to contact you on your dam answering machine, I am sending this response to your dam office.
THANK YOU,
RYAN DEVRIES & THE DAM BEAVERS
Darn/Damn/Dam Beavers
Darn/Damn/Dam Beavers
---The trouble is that you think you have time---
---Worry is the Interest, paid in advance, on a debt you may never owe---
---It's not what happens to you in life that is important ~ it's what you do with it ---
---Worry is the Interest, paid in advance, on a debt you may never owe---
---It's not what happens to you in life that is important ~ it's what you do with it ---
Re: Darn/Damn/Dam Beavers
Thank you Chris.
It brings back memories of working for council!
cheers
Ben
It brings back memories of working for council!
cheers
Ben
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725
Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global Relief • UNHCR
e: [email protected]..
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725
Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global Relief • UNHCR
e: [email protected]..
- Cittasanto
- Posts: 6646
- Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 10:31 pm
- Location: Ellan Vannin
- Contact:
Re: Darn/Damn/Dam Beavers
I have heard of similarly stupid things happening!
why would anyone make a dam out of debris? were the inspectors so stupid not to notice the marks of a natural wild build.
Blog, Suttas, Aj Chah, Facebook.
He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them.
But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion …
...
He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them … he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.
John Stuart Mill
He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them.
But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion …
...
He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them … he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.
John Stuart Mill
Re: Darn/Damn/Dam Beavers
Hilarious!
The Spring Pond Beavers are financially destitute and are unable to pay for said representation -- so the State will have to provide them with a dam lawyer.
Re: Darn/Damn/Dam Beavers
A check of Snopes.com confirms the essential truth of the story. However...I'm sorry to say the actual incident appears to have taken place here in my home dam state.
http://www.snopes.com/humor/letters/dammed.asp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Regards: AdvaitaJ
http://www.snopes.com/humor/letters/dammed.asp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Regards: AdvaitaJ
The birds have vanished down the sky. Now the last cloud drains away.
We sit together, the mountain and me, until only the mountain remains. Li Bai
We sit together, the mountain and me, until only the mountain remains. Li Bai
Re: Darn/Damn/Dam Beavers
Im originally from Pennsylvania as well. Lived in the Philadelphia area for 26 years.AdvaitaJ wrote:A check of Snopes.com confirms the essential truth of the story. However...I'm sorry to say the actual incident appears to have taken place here in my home dam state.
http://www.snopes.com/humor/letters/dammed.asp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Regards: AdvaitaJ
Liberation is the inevitable fruit of the path and is bound to blossom forth when there is steady and persistent practice. The only requirements for reaching the final goal are two: to start and to continue. If these requirements are met there is no doubt the goal will be attained. This is the Dhamma, the undeviating law.
- BB
- BB
Re: Darn/Damn/Dam Beavers
Im originally from Pennsylvania as well. Lived in the Philadelphia area for 26 years.AdvaitaJ wrote:A check of Snopes.com confirms the essential truth of the story. However...I'm sorry to say the actual incident appears to have taken place here in my home dam state.
http://www.snopes.com/humor/letters/dammed.asp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Regards: AdvaitaJ
Liberation is the inevitable fruit of the path and is bound to blossom forth when there is steady and persistent practice. The only requirements for reaching the final goal are two: to start and to continue. If these requirements are met there is no doubt the goal will be attained. This is the Dhamma, the undeviating law.
- BB
- BB
- appicchato
- Posts: 1602
- Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 12:47 am
- Location: Bridge on the River Kwae
Re: Darn/Damn/Dam Beavers
Born in Pottstown, PA...although I left (removed?) when I was three...
Re: Darn/Damn/Dam Beavers
I was born in Reading and a best friend of mine is from Pottstown about 30 minutes away! Small world eh Bhante?appicchato wrote:Born in Pottstown, PA...although I left (removed?) when I was three...
Last edited by bodom on Wed Jan 27, 2010 9:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Liberation is the inevitable fruit of the path and is bound to blossom forth when there is steady and persistent practice. The only requirements for reaching the final goal are two: to start and to continue. If these requirements are met there is no doubt the goal will be attained. This is the Dhamma, the undeviating law.
- BB
- BB
- appicchato
- Posts: 1602
- Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 12:47 am
- Location: Bridge on the River Kwae
Re: Darn/Damn/Dam Beavers
Small world it is bodom...my mother was born in Reading...
Re: Darn/Damn/Dam Beavers
And it just keeps getting smaller Does your family still live in the Reading/Pottstown area Bhante? I am now living in San Antonio Texas but all of my family is back in the Reading/Pottstown/Boyertown area.appicchato wrote:Small world it is bodom...my mother was born in Reading...
Liberation is the inevitable fruit of the path and is bound to blossom forth when there is steady and persistent practice. The only requirements for reaching the final goal are two: to start and to continue. If these requirements are met there is no doubt the goal will be attained. This is the Dhamma, the undeviating law.
- BB
- BB
Re: Darn/Damn/Dam Beavers
I think I'll step in here and start making it bigger again before it vanishes altogether: neither I nor any member of my birth family, going back before Pennsylvania existed as such, have ever been within two thousand miles of Reading.bodom wrote:And it just keeps getting smallerappicchato wrote:Small world it is bodom...my mother was born in Reading...
So there!
(OTOH, I was in Kanchanaburi last year.)
Kim
- appicchato
- Posts: 1602
- Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 12:47 am
- Location: Bridge on the River Kwae
Re: Darn/Damn/Dam Beavers
We could have had a DW meet...next time...Kim O'Hara wrote:I was in Kanchanaburi last year.
Re: Darn/Damn/Dam Beavers
Wow, small world indeed. From PA myself. Have an uncle in Pottstown.