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September 21, 2007

At Portsmouth pond, long-awaited day arrives / Photo

Journal photos / Mary Murphy
A channel was dredged out from the shore line along the Taunton River north of the Mount Hope Bridge, left. Water will flow through inton Town Pond; above right is a view from a trestle. See larger views of the photos here.

PORTSMOUTH -- Thurston Gray waited 10 years for this day.

At least once a week since 1997, the 70-year-old volunteer for Save The Bay visited what remained of Town Pond, 40 acres of marshland that was once a pristine salt pond. Gray, a Portsmouth resident, would tramp through the mud and weeds to test the salinity levels of the small pool of water left in the pond.

The idea was to collect a year or two of water-quality data before a plan to restore the pond started was implemented. The information would then be compared with to salinity levels after the plan was completed.

“I guess I was a little premature on the before part,” Gray said dryly, standing on a railroad track above the pond.

Today, after years of work, the Army Corps of Engineers and the state Department of Environmental Management finally reached the culmination of the $4.5-million effort to restore Town Pond, also known as Boyd’s Marsh.

Just after 7 a.m., crews cleared away a 50-foot wide “plug” of sand and seashells, opening up the channel between the pond and Mount Hope Bay for the first time in more than 50 years.

It wasn’t a riveting sight. Water didn’t surge down the channel. It trickled in, slowly filling the pond, as the tide came in.

But, promised DEM Director W. Michael Sullivan, “you’ll see a very dramatic impact within the year.”

The tide will gradually flush out the wetland, creating a permanent nine-acre pond ranging in depth between from one and to six feet. Phragmites, an invasive freshwater plant, will die off as salt water flows in. Scallops and clams will return to the area as will flounder, which, experts say, will use the pond as a spawning ground.

-- Journal staff writer Alex Kuffner

Posted by Mike McKinney  at 6:59 PM | Permalink

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