Mill River Greenway Initiative
A community-based steward for the Mill River
Reigster early, folks, and learn how to manage invasive plants on this walk at the Lathrop Community in Easthampton! Learn how and why they are removing invasive plants to protect wildlife in Lathrop’s forests. See what is replacing the invasives in areas where they’ve worked for up to five years.
Registration required. Walks at 1:00 and 3:30.
Check out Lathrop Land’s website.
We’re thrilled to announce a series of great initiatives this spring and summer:
LET’S TACKLE INVASIVES ALONG OUR RIVER!
We’re delighted to make available a new guide for land stewards in the Mill River watershed, “Making Room for Native Plants and Wildlife.” The guide, written by the New England Wild Flower Society with support from Smith College, is a plant-by-plant guide to the management and removal of invasive plants species commonly found encroaching on the banks and floodplains of the Mill River. The guide devotes one page per species to repeat offenders such as Japanese knotweed, oriental bittersweet, and multiflora rose, offering pictures and description for identification, a table of when and how best to combat each species, and suggestions for replacement plantings of species native to this region. The guide is available for free on our http://millrivergreenway.org website and will also be available in a printed, bound version at cost, $15 per guide (email us at info@millrivergreenway.org if you’re interested in purchasing print copies). We’re planning to organize educational and stewardship events along the river this summer to distribute the guide and galvanize the community to care for the river. Stay tuned for more info. We hope we’ll see you out there!
THE CONWAY SCHOOL BOOK WILL BE AVAILABLE BY MAY DAY
We’ve gotten an early peek at Armi and Margot’s work at the Conway School and it looks beautiful. The book, entitled “Building a Strategic Plan for the Mill River Greenway” is 68 pages and chock full of photographs, maps, and data. THANK YOU, Mill River Lovers, this is your gift to the river, and the river will be giving back to you. We can’t wait to get this out to you. Watch this space.
A SELF-GUIDED TOUR BROCHURE FOR FLORENCE
Wendy Sinton of the Sojourner Truth Memorial Committee, with the help of Dianne Jester-Wieland (Smith ’16), Julia Franchi Scarselli (Smith ’18), and Florence architect Scott Laidlaw have a draft prepared for a Mill Riverwalk in Florence. Designed once again by the inimitable Rob and Damia of TransitAuthorityFigures.com, we expect to have copies of the brochure early this summer. This is the third brochure in what we hope will someday be a series of ten!
BAY STATE RIVERWALK OPTIONS
Once again, Smith students lived up to their reputation for amazing projects by producing maps and data that summarize parcel data, historical features, and invasive species challenges on the Bay State reach of the river. This work will provide the basis for Bay State residents and the City of Northampton to envision the Greenway from Paradise Pond to the Cutlery Building, as well as gathering the information that will become another self-guided tour brochure. We will post their work on the website in May. Thanks, Julia Graham, Grace Peralta, and Bryn Gingrich for work that will have lasting impact!
ENGINEERING DESIGN FOR THE RAIL TRAIL DISMOUNT TO SOUTH MAIN STREET IN HAYDENVILLE
…speaking of lasting impact, Joanna Kenneally, Sophia Poulos, Jin Rui Yap, and Eliana Perlmutter, Smith seniors working through the Engineering Department’s Design Clinic, have completed an engineering study to link the end of the rail trail in Leeds to South Main Street in Haydenville (Williamsburg). They presented two options, one earthwork and one boardwalk, at a very well attended Community Forum in Williamsburg on April 9. The students’ design and analysis lays the groundwork for Williamsburg to seek the funding that will be required to complete the project. Our deepest gratitude to Smith and the College’s superb students!
We’re delighted to announce the publication of a new guide for land stewards in the Mill River watershed, Making Room for Native Plants and Wildlife.
The guide, written by the New England Wild Flower Society with support from Smith College, is a plant-by-plant guide to the management and removal of invasive plants species commonly found encroaching on the banks and floodplains of the Mill River. The guide devotes one page per species to repeat offenders such as Japanese Knotweed, Oriental Bittersweet, and Multiflora Rose, offering pictures and description for identification, a table of when and how best to combat each species, and suggestions for replacement plantings of species native to this region.
The guide is available for free download on this website and will also be available in a printed, bound version at cost, $15 per guide (email us at info@millrivergreenway.org if you’re interested in purchasing print copies).
We’re planning to organize educational and stewardship events along the river this summer to distribute the guide and galvanize the community to care for the river. Stay tuned for more info, we hope we’ll see you out there!
Paradise Pond — Jim Gipe Photo/Pivot Media
Dear Mill River Greenway lovers,
We are filled with gratitude and excitement as 2016 begins. Above all, we are grateful for your outpouring of support for our work with The Conway School for a gap analysis of the watershed’s natural, cultural, and recreational assets. It will help us set priorities for the next 5 years and provide an inventory and analysis of all our maps, images, documents, and GIS materials.
WE HAVE EXCEEDED OUR GOAL for funding this program and really can’t believe how lucky we are to have been able to meet you, walk with you, bring you out to the river and have you respond with such generosity and spontaneity.
Wow, we’re simply overwhelmed with the support of MORE THAN 50 of our Mill River folks. We will be sending out letters of thanks and tax deduction receipts to everyone within the next 2 weeks, so if you have donated but not been recognized with a note, please let us know.
But wait, we’re not finished with the good news.
First, Maggie Leonard, landscape designer/builder/planner, as well as a former adjunct instructor at UMass and the owner of Paradise City Landscape Design, has agreed to lead MRGI in our initiative with the Conway School of Landscape Design/Easthampton Branch. Maggie is an extraordinarily capable landscape architect/regional planner, an excellent teacher, and a strategic thinker. She will have the full support of Gaby, John, and Neal, as well as our GIS guru at Smith, Jon Caris. We will have 2 Conway students to work with on this project, which begins the second week of January and concludes at the end of March. There will be a crucial community listening session at some point mid-way, which you will be hearing more about as soon as the students get cracking.
Second, our two projects with Smith students will continue through the Spring term. The first is an engineering design for the “goat path” connector from the rail trail at the Leeds/Haydenville line to South Main St. in Haydenville. The second is a self-guided walking tour brochure for Industrial Florence. The engineering project is happening under the watchful eye of Susannah Howe, Director of the Smith College Design Clinic, and the brochure effort is being led by Wendy Sinton of the Sojourner Truth Memorial Committee and Scott Laidlaw, an architect from Florence.
Third, working with the Williamsburg Mill River Greenway Committee, Peter Flinker and intern Nelle Ward of Dodson and Flinker Associates have delivered a superb analysis of the options for trail siting across the Brassworks Meadow area in Haydenville, part of the eventual link between Haydenville and Williamsburg Center.
Fourth, our watershed-wide approach to managing invasive plant species will take a big leap forward with the imminent release of a management plan being created by the New England Wild Flower Society on behalf of Smith College.
Let us know if you have any questions or would like to see copies of, or contribute to any of these projects.
You have warmed our hearts in this season of cold. We will continue to work tirelessly to fulfill our promises to all of you and especially to the river that runs through us.
All the best, with hopes of seeing you all in ’16,
Gaby, John, and Neal
PS A shout out to Jim Gipe, who allowed us to use this gorgeous 2009 photo!
The Florence I riverwalk from Maines Field to Meadow St. Bridge will be led by Wendy Sinton of the Sojourner Truth Memorial Committee and MRGI’s John Sinton. It’ll feature the Mill River industries that drove Florence’s prosperity with a focus on the underground railroad and the Northampton Association of Industry and Education. That’s Sat. August 15.
The Florence II walk on Sat. Sept. 26 walk is one of our most popular, featuring naturalist Laurie Sanders and Elizabeth Sharpe, author of In the Shadow of the Dam. It will cover the river from Meadow St. Bridge to Crimson & Clover farm across from Look Park.
Room is available on both those tours, a sneak preview of which can be found at this link, which you should simply copy onto your browser: https://player.vimeo.com/external/133577379.source.mp4?s=31561790f19a26cad582699c08cf0c56&profile_id=0&download=1
The video was brought to you by Burgy’s inimitable and invaluable Tom Adams, Director/Owner of Reelife Documentary Productions & Folktography by Tom
And get ready for a fantastic fall. We’ll be working with new partners and old to create a path from Leeds to Haydenville, to begin some invasive management, to develop a partnership with the Conway School, and add to our Mill River History.
With all our best wishes, John and Gaby
