Mark Smith's grandchildren used to call the back of his property "the wasteland." For good reason. The 80-acre Eco Park Resort sits along the North Fork Toutle River in Washington State, just miles from Mount St. Helens, and the land was buried under gray ash and volcanic sediment from the 1980 eruption. Decades later, the fine-grained material still smothered the waterway, making it nearly impossible for trees, fish, or wildlife to return.
Smith, who runs the resort with his wife Dawn and their daughters Cheyenne and Kristin, watched the lifeless stretch worsen after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built a sediment retention structure downstream in 1989. The structure, raised again in 2013, was meant to protect communities and shipping routes from flooding. But it trapped volcanic material behind it, leaving the river running past the Smiths' property choked with gray sludge for miles.
"If you can imagine seeing a big gray sediment dune of no life, just ash, sediment from Mount St. Helens, volcanic material," Smith told Mongabay.
The turnaround started in 2021, when restoration scientists held a beaver minicourse at Eco Park Resort. There, researchers taught practitioners about beavers' role as "ecosystem engineers" — animals that reshape their surroundings by building dams and canals. Smith was fascinated. "The beaver education started for me then," he said. "I never really knew … all the different things that they contribute to an ecosystem."
After getting state approval, natural resource experts from the Cascade Tribe, Cowlitz Indian Tribe, Cascade Forest Conservancy, and Columbia Fish Recovery Group began bringing beavers to the property. Many had been facing euthanasia after conflicts with humans elsewhere. Over five years, the Smith family helped relocate 58 beavers to Eco Park Resort. Some stayed; others dispersed to neighboring lands, establishing new populations downstream.
The results surprised even the scientists. Beaver dams and lodges transformed the flat sediment plain into wetlands and deepened pools. Canals began appearing like honeycombs across the landscape. Willows and alders — trees that couldn't take root before — started growing back. Jonah Piovia-Scott, a biology professor at Washington State University, called it remarkable: "It is really amazing to see how their engineering activities are essentially helping regreen this volcanic wasteland."
Now the Smiths face a new worry: logging proposed on adjacent lands could threaten the waterways that sustain their beaver colonies. But for now, the gray wasteland is greening again — one beaver dam at a time.