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Did Cluttered Streams Cause the Floods in Alstead?
listen:
  In the piece you just heard, Walpole Representative Sheldon Sawyer said state regulations don't allow people to clean out their brooks and streams. And that debris, he says, clogged culverts and waterways and caused last weeks flooding. But at the Department of Environmental Services, Rene Pelletier doesn't see it that way. Pelletier is the Deputy Director of the Water Division. He tells NHPR's Mark Bevis that the Department of Transportation is reponsible for keeping the culverts clean
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Mr. Pelletier accurately characterized the facts during his interview. I feel compelled to add that although wood debris does clog culverts and other types of stream crossings, the actual cause of the clog is usually the too narrow crossing and not the existence of the wood debris. If the width of the stream crossings were adequate, the wood debris may have likely passed through the crossing and not clogged it, and there may not have been the disastrous consequences that followed. Most culverts in New Hampshire are much too narrow to allow wood debris, an essential and natural component of healthy stream habitat, to flow through them even during typical spring high water. This necessitates costly maintenance and directly and adversely affects stream habitat.