Featured Projects
The Coonamessett River, the third largest groundwater fed stream on Cape Cod, flows approximately three miles from Coonamessett Pond to the two mile long Great Pond estuary and farther out into Vineyard Sound. In 2020, the Town of Falmouth applied to DER to designate the Upper Coonamessett as a priority project. It selected an area about one mile north of the CRRP for the first project to actively restore 11 acres of former bogs (Baptiste Bogs) containing 0.5 mile of stream channel, and passively restore 3.5 acres of Broad River. Total increase in stream length will be from 1500 lf to 4000 lf. The Baptiste Bogs were purchased by the Town in 1978, and as in the lower river, were initially used for cranberry agriculture. Again the Town with the support of DER, T3C (land trust), the Coonamessett River Trust, and the Wampanoag tribe began restoration design. Funding for this project will also include Mass Audubon (NOAA), USFWS, and CPA.
Like a pebble in a stream or a steak in the ground your input can help shape the future course of our organization.
River herring are an important part of our coastal streams, acting as a bridge between the ecology of the ocean and freshwater environments. Volunteers have helped monitor river herring each spring in Beaver Dam Brook since 2018 and Manomet Brook since 2021. Each volunteer spends ten minutes observing any herring moving upstream and also documents any that might be schooling below the count locations, as well as water temperature, air temperature, and weather conditions. This raw count allows the Mass. Division of Marine Fisheries to extrapolate a population estimate, provided there are enough counts and enough fish have been documented.