# Boston Sunday Globe

November 30, 2003

## Restoring the flow and ebb

## Culvert projects to help marshes

By David Rattigan, Globe Correspondent

GLOUCESTER \-- On the southern tip of Eastern Point, a recently
excavated 85-foot creek connects the Atlantic Ocean to a 5-acre salt
marsh. The seawater runs from the outer harbor through a new
2-foot-by-4-foot box culvert under a road, into the creek, and then to a
4-foot pipe running under another road to the project\'s endpoint \--
the marsh.

The marsh, which is part of Massachusetts Audubon Eastern Point Wildlife
Sanctuary, is being revitalized as a necessary part of the area\'s
ecosystem.

Tim Purinton, Massachusetts Audubon community outreach coordinator,
leading a recent tour of the project, pulled a small wire minnow trap
from the creek, something he\'d left the day before. Inside were several
small fish. \'\'Now we\'re getting fish habitat,\" he said, looking at
his findings. \'\'Basically, this was dirt \[where there is now a
creek\]. There are probably 25 mummichogs in there, which is one of the
things we\'re targeting.\"

The mummichog, an important species near the bottom of the aquatic food
chain, will thrive on the nutrients it will find in a healthy salt marsh
and is one of many benefits biologists have discovered in the salt marsh
ecosystem. \'\'A salt marsh filters pollution, provides storm water
buffering, and provides habitat \[for birds, plants, and fish\] \-- what
a lot of people call ecological services,\" Purinton said. \'\'These
ecological services are very important for our own sustainability, our
land-use patterns.\"

Recognition of those values is the motivator behind projects to restore
the health of salt marshes, including three this fall on Cape Ann -- in
Gloucester, Rockport, and Essex. Replacing undersized culverts under
roadways or installing culverts where there were none, allows salt water
to flow from the ocean into the marshland, restoring the habitat and the
species.

The Eastern Point project, which drew approximately 125 people to its
dedication ceremony last week, was the second completed this month.
Earlier, in Rockport, the town Department of Public Works installed a
box culvert connecting 2 acres of marsh upstream of Seaview Street to
Long Beach and out to the ocean. In Essex tomorrow, a culvert is
scheduled to be installed under Island Road to connect two sections of
the

Great Marsh that were cut off by road fill and undersized culverts. Up
to 20 acres of salt marsh might benefit.

Salt marsh restoration is at an all-time high, said Eric Hutchins, fish
and fisheries biologist for the Gloucester-based National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration Restoration Center, a funding and technical
services partner for the three Cape Ann projects and most projects in
the Northeast.

Hutchins said that when the federal program started six years ago, his
agency\'s budget was \$200,000. The program funding has increased to
\$12 million this year.

\'\'We\'re geared up to the maximum,\" said Hutchins. \'\'We have many
projects underway, using community resources, political resources, and
public and private resources. This is at the peak of what it\'s ever
been. The level of effort has never been this great.\"

While the Gloucester center is a part of the National Marine Fisheries
Service, whose primary interest is the health of the fisheries, the
goals of different agencies affected by the salt marsh projects
frequently creates multiple partnerships. Those partnerships provide
financial or in-kind contributions. For example, in addition to
conservation groups and state agencies such as the Office of Coastal
Zone Management, the

Gloucester project was aided by the in-kind contribution of land survey
work from Judith Nitsch Engineering Inc., and financial contributions
from two companies in the fisheries industry, Pigeon Cove Wholefoods
Markets and Good Harbor Fillet Co.

One of the major partners for the Essex project is Ducks Unlimited, said
Essex DPW director Damon Boutchie. \'\'This is a great project for both
of us,\" he said. \'\'This is good for us, and good for the ducks.\"

The cost for the Essex project is approximately \$40,000; the Rockport
project cost \$25,000, and the Gloucester project \$80,000. Costs
include educational, outreach, and monitoring components.

A high percentage of projects supported by the community-based
restoration program of NOAA are located in the Gulf of Maine, said
Hutchins, who credited a 1996 report coauthored by Purinton and David
Mountain, formerly of the Parker River Clean Water Association, for
helping to spur the activity. Written for the water association and
supported by a grant from the Eight Towns and the Bay Committee, the
report relied on

research by volunteers in the Great Marsh region.

By surveying tide elevations at road and highway crossings from
Gloucester to Salisbury, the volunteers identified areas where culverts
were preventing water from flowing in from the ocean. The original
purpose for culverts was to prevent flooding, Hutchins noted, so the
concern was to let water drain into the ocean, not to let salt water
travel into the marshland.

\'\'They ID\'d a lot of opportunities to enhance and restore the fishery
and coastal habitat resources,\" Hutchins said.

Deprived of salt water, the ecology changes, Purinton said. Not only
will fish disappear, but so will some birds, such as egrets or herons.
Some plant species will die, and the area might become overrun with
invasive species such as phragmites (a reed) or purple loosestrife.

Frequently, the changes in a marsh are dramatic in the first year after
restoration. As an example, Hutchins uses a five-year-old project to
restore a 15-acre marsh on Argilla Road in Ipswich.

\'\'In the first year, we had 18 additional inches in the spring tide,\"
he said. \'\'The phragmites began dying out, and native plants
immediately replaced them.\"

In Ipswich, as is frequently found in other projects, after a dramatic
change the first year, there were incremental changes in subsequent
years. Biologists estimate that it takes more than a decade for a salt
marsh to reach \'\'equilibrium\" \-- a sustainable wetland plant
community, Hutchins said.

\'\'It took a long time to mess this up,\" he said, \'\'and it takes a
long time to fix them.\"