by Dorie Stolley, Watershed Action Alliance Coordinator and Outreach Manager
With Thanksgiving recently passed and the New Year on its
way, it’s a good time to look back over the year and the accomplishments of
watershed associations in southeastern Massachusetts, which work for clean, plentiful and free flowing water
for both wildlife and people.
Clean Water. This
year scores of watershed volunteers across the region participated in cleanup
efforts, removing debris that can strangle streams, plastic that can poison
fish and people, and old traps and other items that can mutilate or kill
wildlife. For example, one hundred shopping carts, 12 bicycles, toilets and
tires were hauled out of the choked Neponset River during one day in August.
Plastic drink bottles by the hundreds, several lobster traps and innumerable
pieces of Styrofoam were gleaned from the mouth of the Eel River in
November. The Butt Brigade was launched
in Narragansett Bay to gather data about discarded cigarette butts, which will
be used to target solutions for this insidious littering problem.
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| Volunteers haul a shopping cart out of the Neponset River in August. |
Other things that foul our water are less visible. Common
pollutants include pesticides, bacteria, and nutrients such as nitrogen and
phosphorus, which, in excess, can over fertilize water causing rampant algae
and plant growth. The algae can clog waterways, choke out useful plants and
even lower oxygen levels causing fish kills.
The biggest nutrient problems come from wastewater treatment plants,
leaky sewage systems, and untreated polluted runoff from roads and yards during
storms, which also can provide a lot of bacteria. To combat these evils, in
2013 watershed associations worked on a host of projects including installing
rain gardens, pushing for better regulations for wastewater treatment plants
and proposing less costly alternative to updating septic systems.
Rain gardens not only remove nutrients from runoff, they
filter out other pollutants and sediment, which makes them cost effective in
the fight to prevent tainted water from entering our streams. A rain garden is
strategically placed in a depression near a runoff source, like a road that
channels water or the edge of a parking lot. It is planted with deep-rooted
native plants, which also beautify the landscape, and must be maintained
periodically for best performance.
Westport, MA is enjoying numerous new rain gardens and
avoiding the costs of more expensive rainwater runoff treatment techniques
because of a partnership between the Westport River Watershed Alliance, the
Town of Westport and the Buzzard’s Bay National Estuaries Program. Volunteers contribute
to this work, too: for instance, they planted over 500 plants in the rain
gardens at the Westport Middle School.
Other ways that watershed associations in southeastern
Massachusetts worked to achieve cleaner water included identifying areas where
nonpoint source pollution was worst and working with towns to install
structural filters, recommending practices for protecting groundwater and Cape
Cod Bay for the Plymouth Nuclear Power Plant, and educating residents on how to
keep pollutants out of the water, for instance, by cleaning up pet waste and
using minimal amount of fertilizer (or none) on lawns.
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| New sign in Scituate reminding watershed residents to conserve water. |
Plentiful Water. Not
only did watershed associations work to keep water clean, they worked to keep
it plentiful. Plentiful water in streams and rivers is necessary for river
herring to travel upstream to spawn in the spring. In the summer and fall, the
outmigration of young herring from their hatching grounds in freshwater to the
ocean where they spend much of each year is dependent on adequate water as
well. To this end, in 2013, summer residential water restrictions on alternate
days put in place by North and South Rivers Watershed Association once again
saved 30,000 gallons per day on First Herring Brook in Scituate. A new sign
reminding residents to conserve water during summer months and thanking them
for their efforts during times of adequate streamflow was installed along a
major travel route.
2013 saw a giant step forward in the decades-long effort to
restore adequate streamflow to the Jones River in Kingston. Silver Lake is the
headwaters of the Jones, however, the City of Brockton withdraws so much water
from it that the stream has not flowed normally for decades to the great
detriment of wildlife, particularly aquatic species such as river herring. This
year, as part of the Sustainable Water Management Initiative, a grant allowed
for a report on water use operations of Silver Lake and the nearby Monponsett
Ponds. Its conclusions were that the present use is not sustainable and is
detrimentally impacting the ecological health of the river, meaning that more
water is needed to flow in the Jones. The completion of this report is an
important step in returning enough water to the Jones for fish to flourish and
the ecosystem as a whole to thrive.
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| Plantings on the restored stream bank by the former Whittenton dam in the Taunton watershed. |
Free Flowing Water. This
year saw much headway on projects to remove outdated dams that block the flow
of water, form obstructions to river herring and other migratory fish and trap
stagnant water. For instance, in the Taunton watershed, after 170 years in
place, the Whittenton dam came down and its waters were released back into the
original channel. Within weeks, a crew rebuilt its stream banks and
replanted the wetlands. It is the second of three dams along the Mill River to
be removed. Once the third is gone, an unprecedented 30 miles of habitat will
be opened up to migratory fish like river herring and American Eel. Other
benefits of this project are the elimination of the risk of catastrophic flooding
from a breach of the dam and new recreational opportunities for residents.
This is just a smattering of all of the work done by
watershed associations in 2013. The member organizations of Watershed Action
Alliance work for you to protect water resources and the wildlife that depends
upon them and to provide opportunities for water recreation. Join your
association to support their work. To find your
watershed association, visit http://watershedaction.org.
