Our good friend Rose is great at supporting local environmental projects. She recently headed a group effort to clean up the Mystic River which flows through Medford and several other Boston area communities. Saturday morning we met at the Wellington Yacht Club on the banks of the Mystic to help remove the water chestnut, an invasive plant that clogs the waterway making it difficult for other indigenous plants to grow and for boats to navigate through the river. I had no idea this was an issue rivers could face, but apparently many years ago a Harvard botanist decided he wanted to bring the water chestnut to Massachusetts because he thought it looked nice. Unfortunately his affinity for the plant became a serious issue as it started taking over the Mystic River. Volunteers are now working to undo his blunder some 80 years later.
It was a great service project to be part of. We basically got a free canoe ride out of it! We worked in pairs to pull the water chestnuts out of the water to free up space for other plants to thrive. We were informed after the service project that our group collected 190 baskets of water chestnuts, clearing out about 4,180 pounds of plant material from the river! It was so fun to pull out these plants with their long roots and feel the satisfying tug as it came out roots and all. We really enjoyed the work and felt good to know we were making a difference and helping to make our local waterway a cleaner, more inhabitable place.
I risked taking my phone on the canoe with me and was able to capture a few photos from the event. Such a fun way to spend a saturday morning. Great job everyone!
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| Beautiful day to be out on the river |
Mary and Jake working hard!
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| Teppo and Jeff |
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| Maddy and Todd Kitchen |
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| Laura White and Natalie Palmer |
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| A boat-full of water chestnuts! |
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