Local Watersheds 101
BY DON DOUCETTE
Nancy and I did a local watershed recon follow-up today in the East Side of Attleboro.
Our Taunton River Watershed’s, EDDY SQUARE BROOK extends upstream beyond Emory Street, under Park Street at Angel Park, beneath Davis Avenue as an open flowing brook and to a seeming wetland headwater beside the Pearl Street Extension – a vegetated wetland related to that neighborhood’s backyards and only a stone throw from busy Park Street.
We believe that Pearl Street Extension-Pearl Street acts as a partial divide in Attleboro between the Taunton River Watershed and the Ten Mile River Watershed i.e Speedway Brook.
I believe the headwater for Speedway Brook might trace to the Bliss Dairy retention pond and culverts behind the Bliss Facility and piped through that neighborhood to a trashy wooded wetland just south of Pearl Street behind the Marathon Factory and then is culverted along/beneath O’Neil Blvd to the Maple Street bridge crossing and on to Thacher Brook.
That trashy wooded wetland is worthy of research and would make an interesting open space habitat with some TLC to improve that open space asset. This woodland being most likely one of the last surface wetland manifestations of the almost vanished Speedway Brook.
A friend had reported this week a small ditch with water in which he played as a boy – that ditch along Gardner Street is now gone and I surmise that running water to have been a ditched former wetland tributary to Speedway Brook.
Much of the connected vegetative wetland related to the Speedway Brook at O’Neil Boulevard has in the past long been filled and developed.
We had not been aware until this week how deep the larger Taunton River Watershed extends into the near center of Attleboro.
Prove us right or prove us wrong. We are open to debate and constructive feedback as we have substantial sweat equity invested in these theoretical watershed findings.
It is never too late to explore your own hometown – exploring our own wild frontiers remains as a fulfilling inner experience to be shared with others.
DON DUCETTE
“FRIENDS OF THE TEN MILE RIVER WATERSHED”