CONCORD After 18 years with the group, OARS Executive Director Alison Field-Juma announced Aug. 28 that she will retire next year from the watershed organization that she helped to expand.
Town officials and a local conservation group disagree on how to proceed with the Talbot Mills Dam on the Concord River with Curran suggesting the dam needs to remain in place while the Organization for the Assabet River says it must be removed.
Gauge the value
Published: 3/17/2021 11:37:13 AM
I have recently heard there’s a plan to build a short dead-end trail right on the Deerfield River below the bridge in Shelburne Falls. During the mid to late ‘90’s, I was involved with O.A.R, Organization for the Assabet River. O.A.R. had clean-up days and meetings to raise awareness about river health and non-native interference with local flora and fauna.
Over 33 years, I have used the Western Mass. river ways as an example of how people honor the value and raw beauty of our Mass. rivers, by not exploiting their local ecosystem. In Central Mass., where high-tech industry and development has won, use of the rivers and tributaries for swimming and fishing is no longer possible due to pollution and loss of species. The impending climate crisis and historic rapid loss of resources around the Assabet, Sudbury and Concord rivers compel me to write this letter.