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Monday, June 17, 2002
Cutting red tape saves marshland
Copyright © 2002 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc. | ||||||||||||||||
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IPSWICH, Mass. — They creep into every acre of low land, wrapping themselves around coastal towns where green hills roll into the ocean. Environmentally important salt marshes weave their way along the Massachusetts coast from Rhode Island to New Hampshire, then continue on to Maine and Connecticut. "They're sort of a factory for producing little fish that enter the food cycle along the coast," said Robert Buchsbaum, a conservation scientist with the Massachusetts Audubon Society. Like its Maine counterpart, the society is working closely with state and private groups to restore hundreds of years of damage to coastal salt marshes. But unlike Maine, the Bay State has a law that makes these restoration projects easier to accomplish. The experience in Massachusetts offers lessons for those who hope to restore the Scarborough Marsh, Maine's most significant salt marsh. The 3,100-acre Scarborough Marsh is protected because it is under state ownership. But development along its edges poses a threat from fertilizer run-off and other forms of pollution. The marsh also has been damaged by road and rail construction, drainage ditches and the intrusion of invasive, non-native plants. In recent years, conservation groups have begun working to undo this damage and ensure the ecological health of the marsh for the benefit of future generations. In Massachusetts, similar projects have focused on restoring tidal flows.
Standing on Argilla Road, which skirts the edge of the Argilla Marsh outside of Ipswich, Buchsbaum shows how a small section of the marsh was cut off by the road and the remnants of a wooden dike. The situation is emblematic of problems facing salt marshes in the area from Gloucester to Salisbury. Some 3 1/2 years ago, a project was completed to restore tidal flows to the Crane's Beach area. Massachusetts Audubon embarked on the project, which involved widening a culvert under a road, when the group learned that work was going to be done on the road as part of a separate highway project. "It gives you an opportunity to do something better," Buchsbaum said. The 600,000 acres of wetlands in the Bay State, which include fresh and saltwater marshes, received a boost in 1978 when the state implemented the Massachusetts Wetlands Protection Act. The law lets the state review restoration permits and help conservation groups with permitting and funding. The act prohibited altering marshland except for certain public projects, and it streamlined the permit process to make it easier for restoration programs to be planned and carried out. The act has allowed state agencies to help hammer through public projects, said Eric Hutchins, a fisheries biologist restoration coordinator with the National Marine Fishery Service in Gloucester. "We're trying to stress getting the community involved and actually get them in the field," he said. Hutchins, who has worked on Scarborough Marsh restoration projects, said the one advantage other New England states have over Maine is a state mechanism for dealing with restoration that makes the process of securing permits less cumbersome. "What Massachusetts has and New Hampshire has are strong, state-supported programs, financial and staff-wise. Complex projects take management time to get through the process," he said. Massachusetts salt marshes were heavily ditched in an effort to frustrate mosquitoes and create jobs during the Great Depression. The work has left long parallel stripes in the marsh. Though damaging and noticeable, the mosquito ditches are not high on the list for restoration. The state's biggest concerns are tidal restrictions, created when roads or railroad beds were laid down and cut off the flushing of ocean water into and out of marshes. Tidal restoration has saved a 1,700-acre marsh hemmed in by the suburban towns of Saugus, Revere and Lynn. The damage to Rumney Marsh was more extensive than to Argilla Marsh, its counterpart to the north. During the 1930s and 1940s, Rumney was heavily ditched. In the 1960s, 200 acres of the marsh were filled for a section of Interstate 95 that was never built. A series of tide gates were also installed during the 1940s. As a result, phragmites, an invasive tall grass that draws up water and chokes out native vegetation, flourished in the marsh. To save the marsh a number of groups, including Friends of Rumney Marsh, came together and embarked on several restoration projects - including the removal of 25 acres of highway fill. None of the projects have been more effective than the installation of 10 self-regulating tidal gates that have returned salt water to 45 acres of the marsh, said Ed Reiner, biologist with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "The '80s was the realization that we had a problem, and the '90s was the turnaround, of course, where efforts have started to bring people together and get some government action," he said. The initiative of private groups will enhance Scarborough Marsh, Reiner said. "It's similar in a sense to the partnerships at Rumney Marsh, with people getting together and figuring out what projects to do and how to fund them," he said. The majority of the restoration work in Massachusetts is on projects prior to the 1978 act because the act banned further altering of marshes, said Christy Foote-Smith, director of the Massachusetts Wetlands Restoration Program in the Executive Office of Environmental Affairs. The work of private marsh restoration groups parallels the growth of state efforts in Massachusetts. Foote-Smith was the program's only staff member when she started the job in 1994. Her program, which heads up restoration projects for the state, restored 100 acres of salt marsh last year and now has six employees. Last month, she won the National Wetlands Award for innovative program development. Foote-Smith said restoration in tandem with construction is useful, but more needs to be done, "It became obvious to me that if we are serious about our goal of no net loss of wetlands in the short term and a net gain in the long term, we need to do more than just try to prevent more wetland loss by controlling construction activities site-by-site," she said. The positive effects of working with construction are evident at Argilla Marsh. The culvert widening on Argilla Road has allowed six times as much water under the road. As a result, the tall stands of phragmites that towered over the small stream have receded about five feet. Giant snowy egrets are once again dining in small circular pools, called pannes. "What it does is push that habitat back a bit," Buchsbaum said. "With phragmites, you're never going to get rid of it; you can just manage it." Staff Writer Ryan Blethen can be contacted at 791-6329 or at:
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