Dam Idiots in PA - Have a Good Laugh!

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. This guy's response is hilarious, but please read State's letter before you get to his response.

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
Water Management Division

Here is the 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 08/17/09 has been handed to me to respond to. I am the legal landowner but not the Contractor at 2088 Dagget Lane, Trout Run, Pennsylvania.

A couple of Beavers are in the (apparently 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..

I believe 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 concerns. My first 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 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 (these Beavers) and the environment (including the 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 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 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 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
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Reproduced exactly below are some exchanges of emails following up the above story:

April 17, 2010 3.01am

Dear Ir. Tai Onn Lau,

The Natural Dam and the Beavers

Thank you very much for your dam funny story. I already started laughing after reading the first few sentences of Price’s letter before I could even scroll down to complete the story, because I could already visualize the story, and what the reply was going to be like.

I think those beavers and Mr. Bear couldn’t dam care two hoots what David L. Price wrote, and what Ryan DeVries replied on their behalf.

Dam it, those beavers and the bear were just having fun and a picnic there in the river, enjoying nature under the sun and making hay while the sun shines. While doing so, they were just building a clean, green and natural hydroelectric dam across the river there for their winter needs. Don’t you see it was America’s Yangtze River Hydroelectric Dam Project built by small animals using only natural materials from the environment – all done without any license or engineering degree?

At least they don’t use dangerous radioactive nuclear materials for energy, and environmentally unfriendly polluting fossil fuels, or other non-renewable sources of energy to make hay while the sun is still shining on Planet Earth. Hence, they need not and pay Large Price for destroying the environment like that Large piss off fellow. So why piss away small fries without any cement and concrete engineering know-how?

That L Price has no guts to speak to those small park animal residents personally, but use Mr. Ryan as a human scapegoat.

Dam’ it, and leave our small eco-friendly friends alone to live in peace. As a David yourself, why don’t you send your threatening letter to challenge the real Mr. Goliath instead of threatening those park animals through Mr. Ryan? They all have the legal right to park right there.

Piss off Mr. Large Price! Dam’it !

JB Lim
Solicitor and Advocator for Natural Dam Building and Dam Parking
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April 17, 2010 6.26pm

Hi Doc,

Thanks for your light-hearted comment. I think those poor Beavers and Mr. Bear would surely like to engage you as their Solicitor and Advocator in case Mr. David L. Price does consider Mr. Ryan Devries’ suggestion to prosecute, or rather persecute, them, hahaha….

On the subject of dam harassment by the local authorities, I can’t help but remember the famous saying by Thomas Jefferson, the 3rd president of US (1743-1826), that goes, “That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.”

As early as in the year 2333 B.C., the 2nd ancient China’s Emperor Yau (尧帝) had already discovered that concept of best governance from a contented peasant who told him during a casual visit: “Work as the sun rises, rest as the sun falls, dig the well for water, farm the land for food, why should there be any interference from the ruler (日出而作，日入而息，凿井而饮，耕田而食，帝力于我何有哉)?”

Dam it. Democra”z”y as practiced today is nothing but “Government of the Dam Politicians, by the Dam Politicians, for the Dam Politicians”!!

With best regards,

Tai Onn
17/04/2010 (after returning home from the IEM’s 51st AGM)
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April 18, 2010 10.09am

The discussion is getting dam serious!

Permit me to add in a few dams here and there:

Even in the so called modern damocratic system or variation of it, either by public election or otherwise, the formation of governments since "governments" were sort of created to rule the people damorgrahphically, who ironically elected and supported them, and even damostrated for them, if not against them, there were always certain degree of "dam abuse" and history keeps repeating with such prominent dam leaders and governments....

Incidently, the damocratically elected leaders of governments are made up of human beings, since the days of Adam, and given their Adam human nature, what constitutes good governance has been a subject debated and written and re-written since the earliest thinkers after Adam.

In the western tradition Plato wrote extensively on the subject, most notably in The Republic.

He, in the the same veins as Socrates. asked if the purpose of government was to help ones friends and hurt ones enemies, ---- > and now, damit, can anyone tell me that isn't true?

Also, Aristotle, Plato's student, somehow picked up the subject and continued the dam philosophy in his treatise on Politics. One often wonders, why Plato, with his namesake, never come out with Platonic Politics with the ideals of ONE PLATONIC GOVERNMENT---- that would have been the best form of government: "Platonic government, Platonic love for the people...."

Few centuries later, noting a highly lacking platonic relationship of government and their people, the dam subject was re-visited, re-invented and re-dammermerised by John Locke (29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704), strongly acclaimed as the Father of Liberalism, who highlighted and tried to address the question of abuse of power by writing on the dam importance of checks and balances to at least restrain, if not, constrain abuse. He is strongly regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers (apart from Buddha?). (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke)

It is now generally believed that the third President of the US, Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was influenced by John Locke to a greater extent, when he co-authored the Declaration of Independence (1776), and envisioned America as the force behind a great "Empire of Liberty". (wikipedia) Social contract? Sounds very familiar at home?

Damit, "Who ever sits in that chair, eventually is the same! Sesiapa yang duduk kerusi itu, lama-lama jadi sama." - Perry Tan, 1990

"In this world, there are two types of people. One wise, the other, otherwise." --- Ptan 2003

The wise thinks politics. The otherwise, follows.

Perry Tan

(By courtesy of CK Cheong, JB Lim and Perry Tan)