Water Closet for September 9, 2016

[pullquote]”As this is being written some with private wells are irrigating to keep their lawns green with water from the earth that is owned by all. It is time to get more serious about water use and conservation.”[/pullquote] Our towns and state are not responsibly managing the water for animals, including us, and plants. Daily personal showers, frivolous watering of lawns, and too frequent laundering and dishwashing are doing harm. From the center of the Ipswich River Watershed on up, the river and its tributaries are not flowing. Many stretches without beaver or man made dams holding back water are dry. In late August the old Closeteer went forth to check for water at many of Middleton’s 17 road-stream/river crossings. They are marked with brook/river name signs installed by the Middleton Stream Team at the beginning of the millennium.

21st century Mark Sprow is standing on the ruins of a sawmill dam that crossed Middleton Brook, which was owned by 18th century Timothy Fuller. After four months of little precipitation it like many other brooks this late summer is dry. – Judy Schneider photo

The names, largely those of bygone farmers, aren’t important; the existence and locations of our brooks are. Folks should know of waterways and bottoms so essential to the Indians, Colonial farmers, and wildlife. State and Town Governments are now protecting them under the Rivers Protection Act (RPA) here in Massachusetts. Each perennial stream is a “river” with jurisdictional buffers extending 200 feet out either side from its mean annual high water edges. Since the Act’s passage in 1996, human activities in the 200-foot “riverfront” zones have been greatly limited. Middleton has about 22-miles of river and streams, also defined as “rivers” under the law. (22 miles x 5280 feet/ mile x 2 x 200 feet wide riverfront x 1/43000 square-feet/acre = about 1100 acres.) Thus roughly 1/9 the acreage of the town is protected by the RPA. The Conservation Commissions of our towns administer the Wetland Protection Act (WPA) in which the RPA has been incorporated.
This week’s Water Closet is primarily about this summer’s drought and its effects on our rivers, not about the Act. Most “rivers” are not detectibly flowing. Long stretches of their channel bottoms are exposed. This is also true of much of the upper Ipswich River. Let’s leave the law and descend into the dry portions, puddles, and   impoundments with water of Middleton’s named streams. The brooks in town converging with the Ipswich River from North Reading to Topsfield are Flint, Punchards, Middleton, Emerson, Boston and Nichols.

Emerson Bog reservoir as seen on July 25th from the Lake Street dam. Much of its water has been pumped over to the Middleton Pond reservoir. A large portion of the 150 acres of Emerson Bog has been reduced to puddles where fish are now dying. – Judy Schneider photo

Flint Brook is a half-mile long intermittent stream in south Middleton named after 18^th century paper mill owner and farmer John Flint. Intermittent streams are not rivers under the Act so have no 200-foot buffers. Many are protected as wetland with 100-foot jurisdictional buffers. Flint Brook with no water-retaining beaver dams is now largely without water.
Punchards Brook drains down from near Middleton center to the southeast corner of town where Danvers and Peabody abut Middleton in the middle of the Ipswich River’s channel. Today mile-long Punchards with no beaver dams is dry along much of its length except where it merges with the river’s broad floodplain, also a beaver impoundment for the past sixteen years. Most of Punchards wide floodplain, now a red maple swamp, was once drained for cultivation, hay and pasture. Signs of ditches can still be found among the maples.
The next tributary is Middleton Brook that drains easterly down from North Reading via Middleton Pond, a reservoir. The brook’s mile length below the reservoir dam is also without beaver dams. In Colonial times there were two working mill dams crossing it. Middleton Brook passes by Middleton center largely unseen and then on below Richardson’s Farm fields. Here is what our historian Lura Woodside Watkins wrote in her book about the brook. “The stream from Middleton Pond was formerly a powerful one of great beauty. It was utilized very early, not only for sawing, but also for grinding grain.”
On down river, between the Maple and Peabody Street bridges enter two large tributaries not noticed while passing in canoes. They converge with the Ipswich River, channels unseen, through lushly vegetated deltas.   The first is Emerson Brook bringing water six-miles down from North Reading and North Andover. The next, which converges just a few hundred feet north, is Boston, long ago Beechy, Brook flowing nine-miles down from Boston and Holt hills in North Andover and Andover. Emerson and Boston brooks have many dams, three made long ago by men and a dozen built in the last two decades by beavers. Even in this summer’s long drought, all have water above their dams. In Emerson there is a manmade dam at Lake Street and another at Mill Street. Several beaver dams are above and below each. Boston Brook has about nine beaver dams in addition to the manmade creator of Prichards Pond.
The last significant tributary entering the river in Middleton is Nichols Brook; much of its length is the Topsfield-Middleton boundary. It brings water from Danvers and the Ferncroft Golf Course located to the southeast. Nichols has several dams in a broad floodplain not easily counted without ice or aerial access. The old Closeteer and friend went though the ice on a beaver impoundment there in 10 degree F air several winters ago. Fortunately for them it was only thigh deep. This once rich bottomland, a king’s grant to John Nichols was farmed by him in the 1600s and by descendants after that. The other day the Closeteer peered into the jungle there from golf course fairways. He entered to cross among the magnificent wetland’s flowering bushes and herbaceous plants. Knee deep muck, with the promise of becoming deeper, soon had him turning back. Much of the Nichols Brook floodplain is impenetrable to old timers. He’ll have to wait for ice or a helicopter to find the beaver dams the water tells him are there keeping valuable water in the watershed.
From his Middleton counts he roughly guesses three score or more beaver dams cross the river and its tributaries in the 155 square miles of watershed between Wilmington and where the Ipswich River enters saltwater 30 miles downriver.
Aquatic creatures not in impoundments are dying in countless numbers. Emerson Bog, a scrub-shrub shallow reservoir that feeds Middleton Pond reservoir has been pumped down three feet and now over large areas consists of shrinking puddles in which dying fish are confined. Herons, especially egrets, are feasting. Drive up North Main Street (Route 114) and take a look.
For emphasis we’ll approximately repeat our opening sentence. Many citizens, towns, and states are not responsibly managing the water for animals, including us, and plants. As this is being written some with private wells are irrigating to keep their lawns green with water from the earth that is owned by all. It is time to get more serious about water use and conservation. The average fifty or so inches of precipitation we are blessed with each year isn’t always timely. We must be prepared for periods when it doesn’t come. Visit a dry brook bed and see for yourselves. There was plenty of life giving water in them and the ground four months ago.

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WATER RESOURCE AND CONSERVATION INFORMATION FOR MIDDLETON, BOXFORD AND TOPSFIELD`

Ipswich R. Flow Rate (S. Middleton USGS Gage) in Cubic Feet/ Second (CFS):
For Sep 6, 2016  Normal . . . 4.2 CFS     Current Rate . . .0.25 CFS
*Danvers Water Filtration Plant, Lake Street, Middleton is the source for actual precipitation data thru July.
** Middleton Stream Team is the source of actual precipitation data for Aug and Sep.
Normals data is from the National Climatic Data Center.
THE WATER CLOSET is provided by the Middleton Stream Team: www.middletonstreamteam.org or         <MSTMiddletonMA@gmail.com> or (978) 777-4584