Marks Cove Conservation Area Site Visit and Public Meeting Foster Community Input

Together with our partners at Mass Audubon, Wildlands Trust, Wareham Land Conservation Trust, and engineering firm Fuss & O’Neill, the Coalition held a site visit and a public meeting at the Wareham Free Library to share preliminary restoration plans and welcome community input on improvements on a Wareham conservation area. Marks Cove Conservation Area is an assemblage of conservation properties that includes approximately 118 acres of former cranberry farmland, freshwater wetlands, saltmarsh, and forest.

More than 40 residents and other stakeholders attended the Sunday, March 2, site visit and more than 30 people attended the Tuesday, March 4 meeting. The groups solicited public comment as they develop the vision for the improved site. This coastal resilience restoration project is being funded by a grant from NOAA.

The former cranberry bog property at Marks Cove today is not at full health. The original wetlands that existed there were highly manipulated for agriculture.  Old ditches, earthen and rock berms, and irrigation pipes still impact how water flows across the land, drying out places that would normally remain wet. Layers of sand were added over the original wetland soils at the former cranberry farm over years, which combined with deep ditches that drain the surface, limit wetland plant communities from fully establishing. Action is needed for this important location to be a vibrant and resilient ecosystem.

Many people in attendance were interested in how the plan would restore natural hydrology and foster resiliency as well. While attendants know the site, they were curious as to what remnants of agriculture would ultimately be removed in the restoration process. “The trails are well-used by neighbors,” says Buzzards Bay Coalition’s Senior Restoration Ecologist Sara Quintal, “but the site has a lot of room for improvement.”

For instance, bog cells that have grown in since its agricultural retirement are dominated by trees of one species and roughly of the same age, with no significant understory. These trees all began growing when cranberry farming ended in 2011. The lack of diversity makes it poor wildlife habitat. Partners explained that removing remnant agricultural features would allow water to flow naturally through the site again, making space for more valuable wetland habitat and promoting greater biodiversity.

Another topic of conversation was long-term change. Partners discussed with attendees the ways they could better prepare the site for transformation into a salt marsh as climate change hastens sea level rise. “While the restored site could function as a healthy freshwater marsh for now,” says Quintal, “a low-lying marsh so close to the bay will likely transition into a salt marsh within decades.”

Some stakeholders were concerned that the trail network they had grown to love would be altered, but they were informed that the paths themselves would largely remain the same but could include boardwalks over the spaces where berms would be opened for water to more naturally move through and the marsh to migrate. Partners emphasized that the restoration will improve the resilience of this land to climate change and increase its value as a community resource.