Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Assabet River - Cox St. to Forest Ave. & Return


Late this morning I returned to the Cox Street boat launch in Hudson to follow-up on last Sunday's rather prolific trash patrol. After launching into the Assabet River, I noticed that the water level had dropped about 6 inches in the ensuing 3 days, thus allowing me passage under the bridge and upriver. Trash on the upstream side of Cox Street was just as abundant as it had been below the bridge. After passing under the newly completed Main Street (Rt. 62) bridge, I stopped to transload trash below deck. The trash continued steady until I reached my turnaround point at Forest Ave. The trip downriver was nearly effortless as the current was running fairly strong. The sun was behind me providing good lighting for some photos. The electric generating station's cooling tower doesn't look to be in use these days...

In fact, it appears that this facility performs a distribution function rather than actual generation of electricity. An oil pipeline crosses above the river as it connects the station with two large above-ground oil storage tanks. Perhaps this equipment is in a mothballed state.
At Main Street, the old wooden railroad trestle of the B & M's abandoned Marlborough branch has finally been removed...

The result is a much more open river with less obstructions for tree branches to get snagged on.
However, the old wooden railroad trestle of the B & M's abandoned Central Mass. branch remains just downstream of the Main Street bridge...

Soon, I found myself back at Cox Street and the day's catch was unloaded from my ship's hold...

The count for the day was 181 pieces of trash (in just a little more than a mile of river). It broke down as follows: 108 recyclable (24 redeemable) and 73 misc. rubbish such as styrofoam, plastic bags, etc. My YTD total stands at 5053.

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