Assabet's Recovery Zone

The view looking up the Assabet River from beneath the Old High Street bridge in Acton, just above the Powder Mill Dam, isn't one I often get to enjoy.  However, I did see it this morning while participating in the OARS Annual River Cleanup.   

This ponded section of water above the dam doesn't see many paddlers, as access isn't the easiest and there's still a stigma from the many years wastewater sludge was disposed of here.  The sludge disposal stopped several decades ago and nature's healing process has been occurring unseen, beneath the surface.

Things are looking better above the surface as well...

There were hawks circling above the appropriately named Pine Hawk site...

...and this guy was ensconced on a platform intended for an osprey...

Heading upriver brought me out of the ponded section to where the river narrows...

Travel up to this point was fairly easy thanks to the dam holding back what little flow the Assabet has these days during our prolonged drought.

An interesting riverside solarium? seen along the way...

Trash recovered from the section above the dam...

This trash soon joined the trash collected by other Acton participants in the bed of a town dump truck...

The Acton group then joined the Maynard contingent for pizza at the Maynard Elks parking lot where Congresswoman Niki Tsongas addressed the group...

...and spoke of her "2016 River Day" activities involving several Third District waterways including the Spicket and Nashua rivers.

For OARS, this was their 30th Annual River Cleanup and OARS Executive Director Alison Field-Juma spoke of the considerable progress made over the past 3 decades...

OARS volunteers also worked today on cleanups of the Concord and Sudbury rivers in addition to the Assabet.  A great day overall for eastern Massachusetts rivers.  Now, if we could just get some meaningful rain.