Saturday, August 3, 2013

Some Squannacook Scouring

This morning Mrs. Trashpaddler and I participated in a New Hampshire Appalachian Mountain Club Paddlers (NHAMCP) trash patrol on the Squannacook River in West Groton, MA.  This was the fourth in a series of trash patrols organized by NHAMCP member Denise Hurt and also included members of the Souhegan River Watershed Association.  Like previous patrols today's was scheduled for the first Saturday of the month and participants numbered 17 (Denise, Betsey, Bob, Dave, Jackie, Jeanette, Joanne, John, Mark, Maureen, Mikaela, Ruth, Sally, Sandy, Sue, Tony, and your's truly).  We launched our various canoes and kayaks from behind the West Groton Water District facility off of Townsend Road and just upriver from the Hollingsworth and Vose Dam...
Once in the river we seemed to "spread out" while scouring the river for trash and generally heading in an upriver direction.  The large number of water lilies produced many false positives for Styrofoam cups. 
Some went as far as the P. Bertozzi Wildlife Management Area and the base of a short riffle there...

We found the river to be remarkably clean and what trash we did recover was either behind fallen tree limbs or near where trails end at the river.  The Squannacook River is noted for having good water quality and thus provides ideal habitat for trout.  In fact one shore fisherman we encountered reported having just caught a rainbow trout.
Upon returning to the starting point a nice lunch was enjoyed.  Denise is seen here helping at the table...
 
 
The result of our scouring was this pile of trash...
 
 
There were 112 recyclable containers and 125 pieces of miscellaneous rubbish.
 
The next NHAMC Paddlers Trash Patrol will be on September 7th on the Merrimack River in Nashua.
 
Before leaving the area, Mrs. Trashpaddler and I visited the small village of West Groton (aka Squannacook) and enjoyed taking what seemed like a step back in time...
 
 
This Clover Farm Store (above) served nicely as a 1950's setting for a scene in the movie "School Ties".  Across the square is the West Groton Dam and the renovated mill building it once served...
 
 
Below the dam the Squannacook can be seen "free of its last dam" and heading towards its eventual confluence with the Nashua River.




3 comments:

Unknown said...

Nice have you and the Mrs. with us once again. Could not have had a better day for a paddle that's for sure. Leaving the river a little cleaner was a nice plus too.

River Lady said...

Hi, I happened upon your blog and would love to add it to mine. You will be my first. Cheers, concordriverlady.wordpress.com

Al said...

River Lady, Sure and I'll add your living alongside the river blog to mine. Thanks