WATERSHED – SHOPPING AND TOURING
BY DON DOUCETTE
Several watershed moments yesterday as we combined personal shopping with local watershed touring.
We took our daily Seven Stars takeaway tea to the former Holy Cross Cemetery overlook of the Ten Mile River Watershed cove off Central Pond. We listened to Sirius Radio music and watched the birds – the forest margin there slopes down to the presently ice covered wrap-around natural cove with random winter-like snow patches. Beautiful, indeed, with a nearby interconnected Gammino Pond trail system
The Martin Preserve pond within Seekonk’s portion of the Runnins River Watershed hosted a number of ice skaters, but even with the recent cold snap we questioned the safety thickness of the ice.
We toured again searching for the proposed site of the controversial asphalt batch plant just off US 6 in Seekonk and verified as the former Empire Collision property found on Industrial Court – associated with the Runnins River Watershed.
When I worked part time for the Manheim Auto Auction in North Dighton, we occasionally picked up autos at that location for transport.
Industrial Way was the former Providence Airport location, actually in reality developed after Charles Lindberg suggested during the late 1920s a municipal airport was needed to serve the Providence area.
With two crossing unpaved runways and later an air terminal building, the airfield served the greater Providence area until the early 1950s transitioning to commercial campus industrial development sites to the present.
Housing does in fact exist close to the proposed asphalt batch plant site.
We did pad-thai takeaway in Swansea and observed the lonely-looking and vacant Swansea Mall – that facility future in question – Cole River Watershed.
Our return to Attleboro took us through rural Rehoboth and a pass by the presently dormant Rehoboth Country Club slated for housing development. Situated beside the Palmer River Watershed – West Branch including several vibrant brook tributaries, the property once served a grazing dairy herd for many years during my youth and provided an (presently dissolving) iconic and appealing look to the Perryville neighborhood.
No dairy cows grazing…no more. Sad.
Don Doucette
“Ten Mile River Rambles”
Friends of the Ten Mile and Bucklin Brook