First the bad news. In 2006, we dredged Post Island marsh, built a giant sand dune and planted it with over 10,000 stalks of American Beach Grass, and about a 100 beach shrubs along the back of the dune to act as an anchor for the dune itself. By the fall of 2006, the dune looked great. The shrubs were growing strong and the grass was very tall and loaded with millions of seed heads that fell into the sand, waiting for spring. In early April 2007 vandals pulled out every beach shrub and about 1000 of the grass stalks and threw them into the salt water. I replanted them, but they all died. 3 weeks later we were hit with the worst Nor’Easter in 30 years. Without the “anchor shrubs,” the dune was severely damaged. I was so stunned by this setback I was not sure what to do. So I decided to do nothing for this season to see what seeds might grow back, and where. We will come up with a plan this winter and implement it in early spring of 2008. I’m not going to let a few punks mess up a project this well designed and all paid for with grants. Now for the good news!! We now have an engineering report for the Parkhurst Street Marsh that may show an easy fix. The City and the State are working together to come up with a plan to enhance the wetlands while getting control of the flooding issues. This marsh borders our newly acquired Boatyard and playground at beautiful Perry Beach. Special thanks to Mayor Phelan and Councilor Kelly for acquiring this land at no cost to the taxpayer. Hough’s Neck will benefit from this for generations to come. I’ll schedule our annual Marsh Madness meeting for October as always, and post it next month. Check out a map of your part of the Neck at WWW.MARSHMADNESS.ORG. Feel free to call or e-mail me anytime. Hope all is well, PJ Foley. H-(617) 479-3800 pjjul@aol.com
SALT WATER MARSH RESTORATION PROJECT
HOUGH'S NECK QUINCY, MA
Contact:
PJ FOLEY KEEPING YOU INFORMED OF OUR ON-GOING WORK