The Bioreserve, Westport River and Rattlesnake Brook

By Everett Castro of Green Futures

The original post can be found in the Westport River Watershed Alliance February 2014 River News issue.

Not all those that wander are lost ...so bear with me.

I often meander about, like our coastal rivers do, when I'm asked to write "a few words" about the remarkable Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve. Be warned, I might meander even further afield since I'm going to write a few words not only about our Bioreserve but also about the far reaches of the Westport River watershed, an impaired Rattlesnake Brook and the support and advocacy from your Westport River Watershed Alliance. Ready? Have your trusty compass or GPS with you? Okay, let's go.

If you're not familiar with the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve ...you should be! Our Bioreserve consists of a large, contiguous forest with diverse habitats and natural communities with the largest portion, owned by all of us, managed by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation and Massachusetts Department of Fish and Wildlife. Also included are the Watuppa Watershed lands of the Fall River Water Department as well as land owned and managed by The Trustees of Reservations.

The purpose of our Bioreserve is to protect, restore and enhance the biological diversity and ecological integrity of a large scale ecosystem representative of southeastern Massachusetts. Neat, that's right where we live!

The Bioreserve also permanently protects water supplies, such as North Watuppa Pond, Copicut Reservoir and wetlands that drain to coastal rivers. In addition, the Bioreserve protects early cultural resources and allows for interpretive educational programs on natural and human history. In this densely populated southeastern corner of the state, the Bioreserve also provides opportunities for passive outdoor recreation and enjoyment of our natural environment.

Within the Bioreserve is the second highest natural hill in Bristol County. Let's meander over there.  Copicut Hill is 354 feet high with a DCR forest fire lookout tower at its summit. For those who may now be wondering about the highest hill in Bristol County, it is Sunrise Hill, 389 feet, in North Attleborough ...but we won't acknowledge that slight height advantage over Copicut since Sunrise Hill is about as far away as a hill can get and still be in Bristol County.

Copicut Hill's topography and the descending height and subtle shape of its ridges creates a dividing line between what flows west and north to the Taunton River and south and east to the Westport River via the Copicut and Shingle Island Rivers and Bread and Cheese Brook. The East Branch is born in sphagnum bogs, cedar swamps and hillside springs deep in the woods.

Wandering back 22 years there wasn't a Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve ...just some city watershed land, some state land, and a large block of privately owned wooded property. Back then rapacious developers and scurrilous schemers coveted those open space parcels for dubious development projects large and small. Some of the proposed projects were truly scary, others laughable. Here's a partial list of some of the more memorable: giant coal gasification refinery with 24/7 coal deliveries via a new rail line across public land into the forest; industrial warehouse park; race horse breeding farm, low-level nuclear waste repository; "Chinese" theme park; mega landfill; adult entertainment zone.

Egregious erosion and brook filled with rocks and gravel

In desperation at the frequency of these proposals and the folly of destroying water supplies, wetlands and forest a few concerned folks from Fall River and Freetown joined together and formed Green Futures, www.greenfutures.org. One of our members dubbed the area the Copicut Greenbelt and we set forth searching for allies. Aware of an early WRWA poster that showed the Westport River watershed extending all the way to the "Copicut Greenbelt" we sought our first ally and immediately found one in WRWA's young and energetic executive director, Gay Gillespie.

Since the beginning of the struggle to drive away those temple destroyers and devotees of ravaging commercialism...notice that nod to John Muir? ...WRWA was there at the start. Over time other environmental groups, individuals, state environmental agencies and local legislators came on board and ...with many starts and stops ...helped turn the Copicut Greenbelt into the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve. Okay, are you still wandering with me... or have you been distracted by something vastly less important? If still with me, it is now 2014 and we have a problem that diminishes, hampers, the full potential of the Bioreserve.

We have wandered north, over the Bioreserve watershed divide to Rattlesnake Brook. Rattlesnake Brook begins at swamps, bogs and springs on the northwest side of Copicut Hill and flows north dumping into the Assonet River at Payne's Cove, just west of Route 24 in Freetown. Two miles downstream, from the confluence of the now tidal Rattlesnake Brook and Assonet River, the Assonet meets the federally designated Wild and Scenic Taunton River.

Person standing where bluff has been worn away from illegal OHV activity

  

Rattlesnake Brook is a lovely brook, similar to West Branch, Westport River's Angeline Brook both in size and character. Historically Rattlesnake Brook hosted anadromous alewife, blueback herring, rainbow smelt and salter brook trout. Unlike Angeline Brook, Rattlesnake Brook has an old, remnant dam at tidewater that prevented fish, except for American eels, from freely moving up and down and in and out the brook. The dam is slated to be removed in the near future and this will hopefully help restore extirpated anadromous species and add to the biodiversity of the Bioreserve.

Unfortunately, the Rattlesnake Brook valley, just upstream of the old dam, has been the site of illegal off-highway vehicle (OHV) activity. This section of the Bioreserve is managed by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR). They have failed to monitor OHV activity and there has been scant enforcement of OHV rules, regulations and laws. The damage is egregious.

Not a high profile DCR managed property ...think Horseneck Beach State Reservation, with thousands of patrons and the political interest that brings ...DCR is loath to secure that area of the Bioreserve and restore the brook and land. They need a little nudge.

Big erosion rut and trees that have fallen

Looking for support from those that early on understood the importance of the Bioreserve and its mission we brought this issue to WRWA. Just as in the beginning, support was received. We are also reaching out for support to other regional and statewide groups and organizations. We appreciate the continued support WRWA has provided the Bioreserve. After all, only a slight geological adjustment, back 10,000 or more years ago, might have put the Rattlesnake Brook watershed on the Westport River side of the watershed divide. Yes, we are all in this together.

Hopefully, someday, a protected greenway that we can wander through or meander about on will extend down from the Bioreserve following the Westport River from source to sea. Wouldn't that be wonderful!

Want to wander the Bioreserve?

There's a very comprehensive map of the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve that is available and best of all, free! If you don't have one you can get one at:

·  The Town Farm, 830 Drift Road, Westport

·  Watuppa Reservation Headquarters, 2929 Blossom Road, Fall River

·  Fall River Water Department, 3^rd Floor, Government Center, Fall River

·  Freetown State Forest Headquarters, Slab Bridge Road, Freetown

To read more about Rattlesnake Brook, please visit the Green Futures newsletter archive on their website, and select the October 2013 and February 2014 newsletters.

Our visit to the Westport River watershed!

Today’s blogger is Shalen!

Just a stone’s throw away from Rhode Island, I visited the Westport River watershed in Westport, Massachusetts last week. Matt Patrick, the Executive Director of the Westport River Watershed Alliance (WRWA), led us around this spectacular area. Starting at the WRWA headquarters, I met Shelli Costa, the Education Director, and Gay Gillespie, who works in Development, and learned about the history and the present direction of the association.

Near the Westport Point

The WRWA was founded in 1967, after a group of concerned citizens came together to protest a proposed sewage lagoon in Westport. Since its establishment, the WRWA has nurtured its cooperative relationships with local businesses and government, residents, and its own members. The WRWA’s present focus is three-pronged: advocacy before state and local boards for the preservation of the watershed’s resources, education, and water quality monitoring. The WRWA has a significant influence on development and conservation projects in the area and staff and members attend Board of Health and other state and local meetings. Education is a big part of this organization’s mission, too, with summer camps and programs and school-based modules are among its successes. WRWA’s water quality testing program is one of the oldest continuously operating ones in the state.

The Westport River watershed is 100 square miles in size and includes parts of Massachusetts (Westport, Fall River, Dartmouth, and Freetown) as well as Rhode Island (Tiverton and Little Compton). About 85% of the watershed’s land mass drains into the East and West Branches of the Westport River, which empty into Rhode Island Sound. The remaining 15% drains into Fall River’s Mount Hope Bay. Because of its proximity to the ocean, the watershed is largely estuarial, an important saltwater habitat for shellfish and eelgrass. This watershed is one of the healthiest estuary systems in Massachusetts, because of its sparse development and low population.

To begin our tour of the watershed, we drove south from the WRWA headquarters to Westport Point and got a taste of the unbridled beauty the Westport River’s waters have to offer. From there we drove over Route 88 and down the west side of the east branch of the river to Baby Beach where the WRWA runs educational programs for children. For instance, fifth graders learn about dune ecosystems and plant beachgrass every October as part of the Watershed Educational Program (WEP), which reaches about 2,000 students in Westport schools every year and complements the schools’ science curricula. The program fosters a sense of stewardship at a young age. Each year the students learn about topic-specific watershed issues, such as the watershed drainage model (used to discuss the importance of rain gardens for stormwater runoff), and work on solving watershed challenges that impact their community, like coastal erosion.

When we arrived at Baby Beach, we found Shelli Costa, known as “Heron” to the kids, and two summer interns from UMASS Dartmouth, nicknamed “Periwinkle” and “Egret,” running a program attended by neighborhood children. The willing students began their exploration into marine ecosystems by learning about the life cycle of the Atlantic silverside and making colorful fish mobiles to take home. Following that, Shelli led them over to the water to search the shallow waters for signs of life while Periwinkle and Egret waded into deeper water to net organisms for the kids to inspect. The children were excited to see silverside fish, spider crabs (we even watched one molt its shell!), jellyfish, and one oddity, a tropical fish, which wandered in from the Gulf Stream, whose currents shift more close to shore in the summer. The kids were eager to share anything they knew about the fish they found, and I could tell they were having a great time. To see children excited about environmental education at so young an age and feeling so passionate about the watershed is refreshing. These children, as so many in the Westport school system who have been exposed to WRWA programs, recognize how integrated their lives are with their environment.

A portion of the constructed wetland the WRWA maintains.

Departing reluctantly from the excitement of the program at Baby Beach, we headed south and east to Horseneck Beach and East Beach, then, traveled north up the eastern side of the east branch of the Westport River. We visited Allens Pond, a tidal pond and wildlife sanctuary run by Mass Audubon. Our panorama of the pond and the coastal beaches was positively breathtaking.

During the course of our travels, we visited the Head of Westport, one of the three villages in Westport and the location of an historic building that may become the future office of WRWA. Behind the building and next to Osprey Sea Kayak Adventures is a constructed wetland that the WRWA designed, built, and now maintains. Its purpose is to filter pollutants from diverted stormwater runoff before allowing the water to enter the river—an engineered, yet natural-appearing solution to a common problem (stormwater runoff) that affects water quality.

Just up the street from the wetland is Westport Middle School, where we watched city workers construct a rain garden at the front of the school. Another freshly planted rain garden sits around the side of the school. The WRWA’s partnership and cooperation with the city of Westport is evident in these gardens. It’s also a good example of WRWA’s influence in conservation projects and maintenance of open space and clean water throughout the area.

We drove next to the Hix Bridge. Huge granite blocks discarded in the Westport River during the bridge’s reconstruction clog the channels, slowing the water current and promoting the deposition of sediment causing difficulties for the native oysters. WRWA is working with a former EPA employee, Ken Perez, to study the negative effects of this sediment buildup on oyster health. The WRWA works with the town (much like the Neponset River Watershed Association does), rather than against it on issues such as this. Environmental organizations’ cooperation with their local people and governments fosters positive and cooperative relations and expedites progress.

The Fork in the Road!

We wandered via the scenic route close to the river’s shores until we crossed Cornell Road and drove down the west branch of the river near Adamsville, where we saw the “fork in the road,” a literal fork statue at the intersection of River Road and Old Harbor Road. Sculptor Tom Schmitt created it in 2010 for a WRWA fundraiser. We then passed a pond near Grey’s Grist Mill that WRWA helped dredge. We briefly crossed the Rhode Island state line in our travels.

Westport Herring Run

Our final stop was the Westport herring run, just across the river from Westport Point, the first stop in our tour. In the spring, river herring swim upstream into Cockeast Pond. This is another truly unforgettable spot in the watershed. I’ve learned it’s crucial to have a view of the river, either for recreational purposes or emotional restoration, because if people can see the river, they will be more likely to have a concrete and personal attachment to its protection.

To see with my own eyes and experience these watershed areas first-hand, demonstrates to me their valuable ecological and emotionally restorative characteristics. Each watershed environment is priceless, unique, and passionately protected by those who care for it and call it home. To become a member of the Westport River Watershed Alliance, and to learn about the WRWA’s stormwater projects, volunteer opportunities, dune restoration project and more, visit http://westportwatershed.org/.