Restoring a River: Bringing back the Coonamessett

I've spent my last seventy years here in East Falmouth and probably remember coming down here to the Kuna desert River in the Bard's probably a five six years old so the child cost a big thing for this area was the herring in the spring it's hard to think of how prolific the fish were you couldn't see the bottom of the catch basin over there the runs would be just be so thick I mean literally you would not see the bottom of the river over there there used to be a million herring in the knesset River a million herring in 1927 and now there's less than thirty thousand I realize now at that time if you told me that those fishes would have become almost extinct I'd say are you crazy are you kidding so what happened to this fissure on through the centuries from the 1700s on it was dammed up as an industrial River first for gristmills later on the site of where we are right now was a woolen mill and so these are blockages for the river after the mill industry moved elsewhere for various reasons this area in the late 1800s was turned into cranberry bogs and one of the things about growing cranberries that was discovered here on the Cape is that cranberries grow better when you keep sanding the bog platforms so the plants themselves aren't buried into the water they're above the water sand moves into the river bottom makes the river bottom wide and sandy and from the point of view of a fish trying to get upriver you're easily spotted by predators from above it also makes it shallow with no shade on the side then it increases the temperature of the river there's concern in in the late 1990s and first decade of the 2010 and a group was form the Kuna mess at River Trust who were concerned with trying to restore the pieces that act as fish run the Kuna mess at river restoration project is unique in the state of Massachusetts it has brought together many different organizations with a variety of interests but all focused on returning health to the knesset River my vision and the crts vision are to create a river that's very well connected to its surrounding lands those lands have been in Cranberry farming for more than 100 years the ers goals for the project are to restore the natural river and floodplain processes along the knesset River who is expected to increase the numbers of river herring that return here every spring but it's also not just about the herring is also about the American eel that live in the system the eastern brook trout in the headwaters that we hope to see expand to the lower river and then the food web that relies on all of those species where we're standing right here is kind of on this bridge between the freshwater system of the knesset River and then the marine and ocean environment downstream from us and the river herring are the vital link between those two systems so they they grow up out in the ocean and then they come swimming up the rivers and give birth to their young in the fresh water and so both food webs rely on those river herring the ocean food webs and the freshwater aquatic food web and so the Connecticut River Project by removing the various blockages in the system will essentially open up that link between the ocean and the freshwater when the river is restored we'll see all aspects of the food web restored so we'll see the insects that live in the bottom of the stream the fish that rely on those insects and the wildlife that then rely on those fish we have this marvelous opportunity now to restore natural vegetation create natural diverse wetlands along the river to plant trees and establish cover and also to improve the habitat within the river itself put in more woody debris things that used to be part of natural river systems but haven't been in this river system for a very long time once construction begins the changes that first occur are going to look really messy but this is necessary to strip away the sand to reorient the river and to allow natural restoration natural the natural seed bank that that is underneath the sand to come back in the first month of restoration there will be a lot of big machines on the on the platform much of the vegetation that's there will come away but if people are just a little bit patient what they'll find is in the spring time that seed bed will flourish and very soon next spring we'll have an initial vibrant wetland but as years go on the wetland more and more wetland plants developed in this community obviously one of the goals of this project is to restore the natural functions of the river to bring back the fish populations but equally important to that is the human aspect and all along we've tried to keep both goals in mind one example of a project that does both is the fish tagging effort that the Kuna method River Trust has done this tagging program gives us important information about the movements of fish how long it takes to get up the river where they get blocked and where are we therefore need to target our restoration efforts the tagging also serves as a way to reach the public so we can let them adopt a fish that's part of part of what's really cool about it is a lot of kids in town get to adopt their own herring people donate money to pay for the tags in the tagging program and the kids get to adopt a fish and the Mullen Hall fourth graders for their graduation field trip are going to come to the river and again they'll get to see the restoration and their adopted fish what they've had to go through in order to get up to the pond this has always been an important recreational area we want to continue to have areas along the river that can be accessed by all ages and all abilities about ten years ago Beth Schwartzman of the 300 committee convinced them how important it was to sort of complete the conservation buffer along the river and in fact it's almost complete and so from the quota method pond down here to the lower bog there's a trail that goes entirely through conservation land either owned by the town or owned by the 300 committee and along that trail what we want to have our stations and at those stations will have a kiosk and one side of the kiosk will have an interpretive sign that tells a cultural story and the other side will tell a Natural History story stories that various people know but they only know little little bits of it and it's an opportunity to put it all together so one of the things that the three our committee is working on right now with the town is the cinema sit Greenway Way Park it will essentially be an amphitheater it's a gathering space a major trailhead so we could have you know kids from the various schools or Scout troops or families to come and it will provide a space for them to gather I think it's just a testament to the people in Falmouth the people in this community the scientists working with volunteer land Trust's and the town when a group of people come together with a vision and determination and collaboration that they can achieve something fantastic so I'm excited to see it come to fruition and to be able to come back here with my family and with my son you know so that he can walk across these walkways and just sort of take it all in there's nothing like being out in nature being by the side of a river to really sort of bring you back to how important this is I think we're going to make a marked improvement on what we have today and that's that's my goal and I think I can see it coming [Music] [Applause] you

Channel: Alison Leschen

Views: 58,020

Keywords: Coonamessett River, Falmouth, MA, restoration, herring, brook trout, wetland, history, Wampanoag, European, pre-contact, natural history, human history, kiosks, trail, conservation corridor

Id: nkd-2oRlRnQ

Length: 9min 32sec (572 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 14 2017