Who Are We?
The Mill River Greenway Initiative is a volunteer organization, whose activities and accomplishments depend on the interests and energy of its members, as can be seen by the list of projects. Anyone interested in the goals of the Greenway is welcome to become a member.
What Are Our Goals?
To restore ecosystems and conserve natural resources, with a focus on understanding and protecting functioning ecological systems. It is no good saving isolated sites if the systems that sustain them are allowed to collapse.
To preserve our cultural heritage and document our unique historic sites through research, inventories, mapping, and interpretive activities that help people understand the river's place in the past, present and future.
To design a Greenway to connect people to the river through a system of recreational trails, bike paths, and driving routes with accompanying maps, signage, guidebooks, and interpretive displays. This will include better river access for the public, development and refurbishing of parks and recreation sites, and better management of existing recreational use.
Our Current Projects
- We are developing a Framework for Organizing Activities in the Mill River watershed, so that any investigator or researcher can understand the relationship of his or her activity to other projects.
- We are assembling a series of historical maps which, when overlain one upon the other, will describe changes in the river and the watershed.
- We are developing maps of the watershed, which will locate points of ecological, historical, and cultural interest, as well as access points and riverside trails.
- We support local design projects, such as Williamsburg's Meekins Park and Northampton's Bean/Allard Farm.
- We support land conservation efforts on the part of our towns and land trusts.
- We are creating photo albums to which people can contribute.
- We hope to create virtual tours, so that anyone can discover information, including photos and interpretive material online.
- We are researching a history of the Mill River watershed and will begin soliciting narratives about the river from residents of the watershed towns.
- We are planning field trips for 2011.
- We work with the Connecticut River Conservancy to help monitor water quality on the Mill River.
Why a MRGI?
What is a Greenway?
Greenways are open-space corridors managed for conservation and recreation. They follow natural features, such as rivers, and link nature reserves, parks, cultural features, and historic sites with each other. There are numerous benefits to establishing a greenway along the Mill River.
The River Links Us Together:
- The Mill River physically links Ashfield, Chesterfield, Conway, Goshen, Northampton, Westhampton, Williamsburg, Hatfield, and Whately.
- Northampton and Williamsburg were founded on the Mill River and the river remains their cultural center.
- The Mill River is the recreational spine of Northampton and Williamsburg.
- The Mill River is the crucial ecological feature in the watershed and holds much of the watershed's biological diversity.
- The Mill River remains a vital, but underutilized, recreational and educational resource for the region.
- The Mill River corridor is ripe to become one of the watershed's most beautiful design features.
Vibrant, Local Economic Activity:
- Greenways, like all conservation areas, tend to increase the value of adjacent properties.
- Increased visits by residents and tourists will provide income for local businesses.
- The cost to towns of riverside repair, especially those associated with local flooding, will decrease as more care is taken to maintain river banks and conserve vegetated buffers.
Open Space Conservation and Recreation:
The Mill River is the watershed's single most important organizing principle in planning for recreation and open space because it physically ties together all our towns. Furthermore, the river offers unique opportunities to connect all of us to the living natural and cultural systems that created our communities and continues to sustain them.
We foresee a future in which people will be able to access most of the Mill River, to walk its banks, to view wildlife, and to rediscover our cultural heritage.