A large culvert is used to keep the pond level from breaking the berm. It often gets blocked up by silt , weeds or the dreaded beaver and sometimes you need to take drastic measures to clear it.
I had a summer job working for a forestry company. My partner and I were sent one day to remove a beaver dam from a 36" culvert under a logging road. The water level was near the top of the culvert and about to flood the road. There was just a trickle of water at the lower end of the culvert. The quickest, most direct way to clear the obstruction was for someone to go inside the culvert. Being the junior man, I was given the job. While my partner temporarily blocked the flow with a piece of plywood at the upper end, I crawled on my hands and knees from the lower end, about 60 feet to the blockage which was near the upper end. I was wearing hip waders and carried an axe. With the plywood covering the upper end and my body blocking light from the lower end it was nearly pitch black. I was afraid of coming face to face with an angry beaver. It was a hard crawl on the corrugated steel, but I got there and started pulling the dam apart with the axe. I shouted to my partner to allow some water through to flush the debris past me. I meant just a little bit of water, but he removed the plywood completely and I saw the incoming water rise to a few inches from the top of the culvert and I was screaming bloody murder to stop it again. I was afraid I'd either get drowned or flushed out the culvert with the debris. We managed to get a system going of periodically allowing short surges of water to flush the debris without killing me. It was pretty satisfying to see the 36" blast of water going out the culvert when we were done.
DURN IT...I kept waiting and waiting for you to say...Then..it happened! !! and all of us out here say...What happened? ?? Then YOU scream and say...I GOT KILLED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Damn, I hope you learned in your age that the boss isn't always looking out for your best interests. I would have said fuck that, there has to be a safer way.
I went to a pond in the neighborhood to fish one day. The water was running over the low point in the dam and 5 foot above the drain. I dove in and found a turtle over the drain pipe.
