Northshore Magazine

Northshore May 2019

Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.

Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/1115953

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 96 of 131

95 hen it comes to restoring vulnerable environmental areas, the best and most elegant solutions are natural ones that help bolster the landscape's existing assets and protections, rather than imposing ones that are manmade. at's exactly the goal of an innovative pilot project that aims to restore the natural flow of water, sediment, and nutrients in the Great Marsh on the North Shore, which was damaged in the past by attempts to drain the marshes and is now being doubly threatened by rising sea levels and increased storm activity. e Trustees of Reservations, which manages more than 115 properties throughout the state, has received a "priority project" designation from the Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game's Division of Ecological Restoration (DER) for the project, which will pilot innovative methods of restoring the salt marsh habitat. Last summer, e Trustees was awarded a $15,740 MassBays grant to support the first phase of the long-term ditch remediation to restore the salt marsh in the Parker River Estuary, target- ing 85 acres at the Old Town Hill Reservation in Newbury. e project has since been awarded a combined $160,000 in additional funding from U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) grant program, the North American Wetlands Conservation Act, and from the USFWS Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program and DER. Eventually, the work may be expanded to include two additional Trustees sites located in the Great Marsh in Essex and Ipswich. e Great Marsh is a more than 20,000-acre continuous expanse of barrier beach, salt marsh, dunes, and water bodies stretching from Cape Ann to New Hampshire. It's an incredibly important habitat that supports rich biodiversity, sequesters carbon from the atmosphere, protects the coastline from storm surges, and helps support the region's commercial fishing and tourism industries. However, the Great Marsh is also under threat. Once agricultural activities for salt marsh hay farming ceased in the early 1900s, the ditches fell into disrepair, allowing the marsh to flood. In an PHOTOGRAPH BY PAULA STEPHENS/SHUTTERSTOCK S A L T M A R S H Rescue Restoring North Shore's landscape one grant at a time. By Alexandra Pecci The Trustees are working toward restoring the salt marsh habitat.

Articles in this issue

view archives of Northshore Magazine - Northshore May 2019