NAP- Neighborhood Alliance of Pawtucket

Friends of the Moshassuck

Channel 12 News on Cleanup http://www.wpri.com/dpp/news/local_news/blackstone/dozens-come-out-for-earth-day-clean-up was great coverage of the 200+ for our cleanup event today despite the rain. This quote makes it all come together !
"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain."

Pictures from the Moshassuck 2011 Cleanup http://themoshassuck.org/cleanup.php

Scott Turner: The little valley that could- The Moshassuck River

Saturday, October 17, 2009

SCOTT TURNER

WHEN I NEEDED a safe place during childhood I snuck into a nearby garage, snuggled in my own thoughts and dozed off.

I think of that haven when I visit the Moshassuck River. Cool, damp, serene, sometimes smelling of oil and gas, home to Roger Williams and the Industrial Revolution, it’s the “river where moose watered” long ago.

The Moshassuck, with its beginnings in the tiny streams of Lime Rock, in Lincoln, slices through a valley once the natural course of the Blackstone River until ice jammed it eons ago. Look west from College Hill to the 180-foot summit of Windmill Hill to witness the Moshassuck’s natural corridor.

It is “an old, old path,” said Greg Gerritt, founder of Friends of the Moshassuck, an advocacy, protection and restoration group. The valley was a main line before, during, and after the American Revolution, when manufacturing was king in Rhode Island, and the river served as industrial sewer for mills, metal works and textile factories.

Today the Moshassuck shares the valley with hundreds of homes and commercial properties, and major routes, including Route 95, Amtrak and MBTA rail lines, and North Main Street. At least 29 roadways cross the river across several communities.

Last week, I ran into Gerritt on my way to the river. We walked over to Collyer Park. Although the whine of interstate traffic dominated, I could still hear the water rippling over fallen trees.

We stood under a red maple on the stonework of the channeled bank.

Sunlight pierced the crimson foliage, illuminating the river bottom.

The summer algae and sewage smell were gone.

Gerritt said that in about 10 years, completion of the Narragansett Bay Commission’s combined sewage project would finally rid the Moshassuck of human waste.

In Collyer Park, the Friends of Moshassuck has transformed a field of invasive Japanese knotweed into a budding river bottom forest of red and silver maple, sweetgum, red oak, river birch and white ash. The trees produce shade that suppresses the knotweed.

Japanese knotweed spreads rapidly into dense thickets, particularly along shorelines, withstanding drought, flooding and high heat. It can reach 10 feet in height, with broad, oval pointy tipped leaves.

I’ve watched the trees planted by the Friends spread from atolls into a growing riparian forest, and the knotweed underneath begin to whither.

A trail of thick black plastic, dotted with the lemon-yellow land snails that congregate on it, winds through the new forest, which produces a fruit cereal display of gold, orange, red, purple and yellow in late October.

When a train in the valley discharged a three-second wistful warning whistle, I thought of our restructuring world in which so many people live in constant fear and uncertainty.

Restoring the health of local environments is a way to repair the world, Gerritt said. “If we don’t heal ecosystems, we won’t make it on this planet.”

Once, the Moshassuck fueled the greatest nation on Earth. Then the river was left to die.

Still, the not-always-pretty Moshassuck flows to the sea. From its banks, Gerritt has seen menhaden, suckers and sunfish, fox, muskrat and herons.

Repair work by the Friends of the Moshassuck reminds me that mending can take a long time.

I once found refuge in a dark garage. There is light along the banks of the river, where a group of people believe they can transform the survival of an individual resource into a meaningful community for all.

I believe that if you give animals, plants and the landscape a chance, they all return.

Scott Turner is a Providence-based nature writer. His columns appear here each Saturday ( scottturnerster@gmail.com).

KleenUp and more trees for Collyer Field

.

FOTM participated in Pawtucket's Earth Day cleanup, cleaning up around
San Antonio Way, working with a community groups from the
neighborhood.
In April- FOTM held its annual tree planting, this year planting Oak
and
Linden trrees at Collyer Field. Trees are hanging in there. We
planted our
usual 6 trees, but managed to stay under budget on the project due to
the
donation of a transportation of the trees and the purchase for the
first
time of bare root trees. We worked in cooperaton with the Providence
City
Forester and were therefore able to piggy back on the city's order,
which
saved us even more on trees.

Funding & Free Info-Getting the word out on Watersheds

In Mass there was success with the last storm(May 2006) with all water absorbed-
Department of Conservation and Recreation Lakes and Ponds staff visited two high-profile state parks yesterday to see how they weathered the storm. Both parks- Walden Pond and Great Brook Farm- had installed LID stormwater features within the last 2 years, including porous pavement, small-scale distributed vegetated depressions, infiltrators, and rain gardens. At both parks, which received over 7 inches of rain, there was almost no evidence of the storm! Water had infiltrated into the depressions, the pathways were dry, and virtually no signs of erosion were present! We were very excited to see how well these features performed and the park staff were ecstatic.
..
Check out the Rivers Council web site : www.ririvers.org
Also on the left side under Funding Information and then click on "Check this Flyer". Or go directly at:http://www.ririvers.org/PDF%20Files/Fundraising%20Workshops.pdf

Help spread the word...
>
> New Getting In Step Watershed Outreach Guides Available
>
>
> EPA announces a set of valuable new resources designed to assist
local
> governments, watershed groups, watershed management agencies, and
others
> to plan and conduct effective watershed outreach campaigns:
>
>
> 1) Getting in Step: A Guide for Conducting Watershed Outreach
Campaigns
> (Publication # EPA 841-B-03-002), and
> 2) Getting in Step: A Video Guide for Conducting Watershed Outreach
> Campaigns (Publication # EPA 841-V-03-001)
>
>
> These two companion guides offer advice on how to effectively raise
> citizen awareness of nonpoint source pollution and to motivate
> individual behavior change to develop more water-friendly habits and
> practices that will lead to cleaner waters for your community and our
> nation.
>
>
> The 100-page book, plus appendices, expands upon a 1998 publication
by
> the Council of State Governments and includes new information from
the
> growing field of community-based social marketing. The book is
intended
> as a reference that pulls together principles, techniques, and
> information for effective watershed outreach into a single,
> user-friendly source. The 35-minute video reinforces the six-step
> process outlined in the book, and showcases four successful outreach
> programs from around the United States .
>
>
> For a free copy of this guide and its companion video, please contact
> the National Service Center for Environmental Publications via phone
at
> 1-800-490-9198 (from outside the U.S., call 1-513-489-8190) or via
the
> Web at www.epa.gov/ncepihom. The book is also available as a PDF
> download at epa.gov/nps/outreach.html.

Smart Growth

Free Smart Growth technical assistance to states and
communities

Request for Applications: Smart Growth Implementation Assistance

Free technical assistance available!

Are you trying to encourage specific smart growth techniques like
transit-oriented development? Or direct your state department of
transportation investments to better support smart growth? Are you
looking to use smart growth to reach economic development goals? Do
you
need help analyzing guidelines for school investments that best fit
your
state or community? Do you need to retrofit a commercial corridor? Or
coordinate your community's smart growth design with an active aging
program?

The Development, Community, and Environment Division in U.S. EPA's
Office of Policy, Economics, and Innovation is responding to this need
by issuing a request for applications for the Smart Growth
Implementation Assistance program. Through this program, a team of
multidisciplinary experts will provide free technical assistance to
communities, regions, or states that want to develop in ways that meet
environmental and other local or regional goals.

Communities, regions, and states around the country are interested in
building stronger neighborhoods, protecting their environmental
resources, enhancing public health, and planning for development, but
they may lack the tools, resources, or information to achieve these
goals. EPA can help applicants overcome these roadblocks by providing
evaluation tools and expert analysis.

EPA is soliciting applications from communities that want help with
either policy analysis or public participatory processes. Selected
communities will receive assistance in the form of a multi-day visit
from a team of experts organized by EPA and other national partners to
work with local leaders. Applications will be accepted until March 8,
2007.

For more information and application materials, please go to
www.epa.gov/smartgrowth/sgia.htm .