Mill River Greenway Initiative

A community-based steward for the Mill River

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Irene — Early Thoughts

TIME FOR SOME RIVERWALKS!

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This has been a long, drawn out springtime, so let’s celebrate it with some river walks at the upper, middle, and lower end of the river.

1. April 14 Saturday at 10:00-12:00.  Dam site of the 1874 Disaster plus the Searsville Dams with Williamsburg historian Ralmon Black.  We’ve been waiting for this one for a long time, so before the trees leaf out and the bugs come to bite, we’ll gather at the parking lot off Petticoat Hill Rd. behind the Dunphy School in Williamsburg.  If you plan to go on this short hike, please register with us here at the website so we can be sure to set up an appropriate car pool.  Just send a message to info@millrivergreenway.org  In case of heavy rain, we’ll reschedule the walk.

2. April 28th Saturday at 10:00-12:00. Riverwalk at the Northampton Community (Bean/Allard) Farm in Florence.  Walk will be held rain or shine.

Meeting Spot: Crimson & Clover Farm, 215 Spring St. in Florence

Connections: The Nature & History of the Mill River and the Northampton Community Farm

Trip Leaders:

Laurie Sanders, a well known local naturalist, will share information about the flora and fauna found along the hedge rows and within the forested corridor along this stretch of the Mill River.

Elizabeth Sharpe, author of In the Shadow of the Dam, will provide an historic perspective for this stretch of the Mill River and the impact of the 1874 Disaster.

John Sinton, co-moderator of the Mill River Greenway Initiative, will give a brief overview about the role this reach of river plays in connecting  the upper and lower sections of a proposed Mill River Greenway.

This walk is sponsored by the Mill River Greenway Initiative, Grow Food Northampton, and Friends of Northampton Trails and Greenways, and the Northampton Conservation Commission.

Limited to 15 participants

RSVP info@millrivergreenway.org

3. May 11th Friday at 4:30-5:30. The Hidden Mill River in Northampton.  John Sinton and Sky Sutton will lead this short walk from Paradise Pond at Smith College to the Hidden Mill River where it still runs through downtown Northampton.  The walk will emphasize the geography of Northampton’s early years and we’ll talk about the history of floods on the Mill and Connecticut Rivers.  In case of heavy rain we’ll reschedule this walk.  As a courtesy so we know how many people to accommodate, please register with us at info@millrivergreenway.org

4. June Riverwalk in Leeds, date and time tba, led by Stephanie and Peter Flinker.

2012: A look ahead

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We hope you survived “winter” and are off to a great new year. We wanted to quickly let you know what we were up to in 2011 and what to look forward to from us in 2012. 2011 was a year of making connections and momentum building. We’ve got a great foundation to work from this year.

We got serious enough about the Greenway effort to take it public, and in late March we launched millrivergreenway.org (Thanks for visiting!). The website is the information hub for the Greenway effort. We’ve gathered a great collection of resources already, from stunning photos to historical maps, and we’re always on the lookout for more — send us some great content about the river and we’ll put it up.

Growing Community at the Bean Allard Farm

In July, several of us scoped out a river trail on the Bean Allard farm property in Northampton to be a part of the new recreation and farming complex. Working with Northampton’s planner, Wayne Feiden, and members of the Grow Food Northampton community, students at Smith’s Center for the Environment, Ecological Design and Sustainability led by Reid Bertone-Johnson, a Smith faculty member, will be designing a trail along the newly acquried Mill River greenway from Meadow Street to the Bean farm. Gaby Immerman and her Smith students also did some invasive species surveying, finding a good deal of multiflora rose, knotweed, and bittersweet that needs our attention.

Hurricane and Rain

In August we were visited by hurricane Irene and a 500-year flood event on the Mill River. We all witnessed the raw power of the river as it ran through several sections of Rt. 9 in Williamsburg and the flood control gate was raised in Northampton for the first time in 50 years.

With the ground so saturated, the river seemed to stay swollen all fall, right through the Halloween nor-easter that left many of us without power for multiple days.

Smith College Gets Involved

In November we participated in a Kahn Institute program at Smith, an interdisciplinary collaboration of Smith faculty exploring the possibilities of using the Mill River Greenway Initiative to address the ecological needs of the river while connecting the college to the community in new ways. John has led several groups on tours of the historic Mill River from downtown Northampton to Bay State, pointing out the original path of the river and the early beginnings of the industry on which Northampton depended.

A Look Ahead for 2012

There’s a lot to look forward to in 2012. We hope to spend more time with more people out on the river this year spreading the word about the Greenway Initiative, and we plan to continue to grow and mature this modest citizens group and build public will for the Greenway. To that end we’re in the early phases of collaborating with with the Williamsburg Village Center visioning Committee and the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission on exploring the possibilities of a multi use corridor connecting the two village centers. Northampton and PVPC have applied for a grant to do an ecological survey of the river, which would require volunteer help from our members.

We’re planning several riverwalks, and will be especially excited to welcome Laurie Sanders, who has volunteered to lead a walk on the Bean-Allard land this spring or summer. John will continue to lead walks from downtown Northampton to Bay State, and we’re hoping to corral members in Bay State, Florence, Leeds, Haydenville, and Williamsburg into leading trips. We’ll also plan a paddle in March or April from Hulburt’s Pond (Arcadia Refuge) to South Street in Northampton.

Exciting projects are taking shape up and down the river, and we probably don’t know about many of them all so drop us a note if you hear of something! We’re looking forward to getting involved with all of you.

Cheers,

Neal and John

P.S. Help spread the word about this effort and forward this email on to your friends.
P.P.S. You can connect with us on facebook.

Vote on Northampton’s Community Preservation Act

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Northampton Residents to Vote Whether to Repeal the Community Preservation Act on November 1st.

There will be a single referendum question on Northampton’s election ballot this November 1st: The question is whether Northampton should repeal the Community Preservation Act (CPA).  A “no” vote will allow the CPA to continue, and a “yes” vote will repeal the CPA.
Proponents of  “Vote NO” to Save the CPA,” point to the program’s successes: It has
protected hundreds of acres of open space, preserved
some of important historical landmarks and has supported the
construction of new recreation fields and affordable housing. In addition, the CPA has brought millions of dollars to our city — the $3.8 million the city collected in CPA funds have been matched by over $17 million from other sources.

Opponents state that residents of the city already pay too many taxes.

For more information: http://www.northamptonma.gov/cpc/

For a map of all CPA projects: http://www.northamptonma.gov/cpc/googlemap/index.html

 

New Irene Photos

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Here are some great new photos, folks.  The three from professional photogapher, Janine Norton, show the mud line after the waters subsided, a great way to measure the height of the water.  One from MRG member Bill Williams shows the the dam at Paradise Pond, which usually measures about 20 feet from lip to splash pool, but looks  like a minor falls during Irene’s high point.  Bill’s other photo is the Corps of Engineers’ barrier on West Street at the 1940 diversion.  The barrier was constructed in the 1950s and hadn’t been used until Irene hit.

Mud Line 1 J.N.

Irene

Mud Line 2 J.N.

Mud Line 2 J.N.

Mud Line 3 J.N.

Mud Line 3 J.N.

Paradise Pond Dam B.W.

Paradise Pond dam B.W

West Street Barrier B.W.

West St. barrier B.W

Irene — Early Thoughts

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Well, folks, what a storm, what a peculiar storm.  In the history of Mill River floods that goes back 350 years, this was one of the few times that the Connecticut River tributaries had record high water, while the big river remained well below record levels.  This is chiefly due to the season of the year — it’s late summer, and there’s no snow pack to add to the big river, so, while the Connecticut is plenty high, it’s not the main source of our farmers’ woes.  It’s the Deerfield River, for example, that did most of the damage in the Pioneer Valley.

Furthermore, summer floods, caused by hurricanes, tend to be pretty flashy.  Look at the Mill River statistics in today’s Gazette: The Mill River peaked at a record high of 16.42 feet at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, eclipsing the old record of 15.6 feet.  The river had receded to 6.95 feet as of Tuesday afternoon.  All of you who got out on Sunday and then viewed the situation on Monday, caught the meaning of the term “flash flood,” and you’ve got a hint of the fear that the Mill River brought to the valley that dreadful morning of May 16th, 1874, when the dam on the Mill River’s East Branch failed and caused the flash flood that killed 139 people.

Irene visits the Pro-Brush dam in Florence, 3:00 p.m. 8/29