Mill River Greenway Initiative
A community-based steward for the Mill River
Please take a look here at the first installment of our mapping project — Kassia Rudd’s (Smith ’11) geographic study of the changing industries and industrial power sources from 1831-1895. It includes the reach from the Upper Mills (Smith College) to Broughton’s Meadow (Florence). We’ll be adding historical material from the 17th and 18th centuries shortly, and we look forward to adding the river reach from Leeds to Williamsburg.
Check out the Upper Roberts Meadow Dam and Reservoir project that we’ve just added to the project list. While the Greenway takes no official position on whether or not to save the dam, we think it’s important to let our members know what’s going on.
The Massachusetts Division of Ecological Restoration, one of our close partners, has just published it’s latest newsletter here. The newsletter, Ebb&Flow, always has some pretty neat stuff in it, but we’d like to draw your particular attention to the grants section, which briefly describes recreational trails grants for which we might well want to apply at some point.
Happy reading!
Meekins Park: new fence on restored wall. Photo: Nick Dines
Discussion will include river access, pedestrian needs, generally how development should look in and near the centers, and whatever related issues you bring to the meeting. Community input will be used for the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission to assess zoning regulations with the end result to be recommended strategies to strengthen our village centers.
The committee is also seeking public input through this survey. Please take a moment to let the Town know how much you’d like to see the Mill River featured in the future plans for Burgy and Haydenville village centers. (If you need something to get you thinking, here’s a good place to start: the village centers wouldn’t be where they are if not for the Mill River.)
End of River 9 Photo: Janine Norton www.janinenorton.com
