A 13-year effort to restore cranberry bogs to freshwater wetlands and native grasslands has been completed in Mattapoisett, and the 55-acre property is now ready for visitors.
During a celebration event this week, staff from Buzzards Bay Coalition, who led the effort, explained what it took for them and an excavation crew to undo 80 years of farming impacts on the area.
"They had to remove all those culverts, buried pipes, irrigation tubing, large portions of dikes to naturalize the flow of water across this site. They then had to scrape a foot of sand off of the wetlands," said Mark Rasmussen, president of the Buzzards Bay Coalition. "They excavated pond features. They built five bridges and two boardwalks that were installed in order to enhance an approximately two-mile trail network."
The newly restored wetlands will be better able to absorb and filter water moving into the nearby Mattapoisett River which feeds Buzzards Bay downstream, as well as the public drinking water supply for some 30,000 people in the towns of Fairhaven, Mattapoisett, Marion and Rochester.
"Wetlands are natural sponges. They do so much for us that we often don't realize. So wetlands really clean the water before it seeps into the ground and becomes our drinking water that we pump out of wells and before it runs into the river. So they act as these sponges that really clean the water but also help contain it," said project manager Sara Quintal.
"If we erased all of the wetlands from our landscape and just developed everything, water would have no place to go. Water would be going into everybody's backyards and basements and over roadways."
It's a particularly threatening issue as climate change makes flooding from storms more frequent and intense.
The team also expanded a parking area, which can be accessed at 141 Acushnet Road in Mattapoisett, and reconfigured the trails to be wide and flat enough for wheelchair accessibility.
Already, Quintal said, the restored landscape has attracted human and non-human visitors, like egrets, osprey, toads, and more.
"The turtles [have] come back, the frogs [have] come back. And the birds," she said. "Out here, we had our first pair of killdeer nesting within the first two months of grading being done. "
