Hi Shelly,
I’ll bring over a CD with photos also but here are a few thoughts for the newsletter. You asked for
updates on the dam removal initiatives – the only one I really know much about is the Hall Brook
dam on Hoxie Brook, so I have a blurb below about the status of the removal and HooRWA
involvement in monitoring the stream before and after.
In addition, I have a short blurb about the clean up’s the South Branch Stream Team has done
over the past few weeks, including two days with the Overland group.
Plans to remove Hall Brook dam on Hoxie Brook, Adams, MA
The Hall Brook dam on Hoxie Brook in Adams, Massachusetts dam is located on the
west side of town, just upstream from where Hoxie Brook flows under the library and downtown
Adams and then into the Hoosic River flood chutes. The Massachusetts Dam Safety Commission
considers this 18?? structure to be at risk of an unplanned breach and is requiring the owner to
either repair or remove it. An uncontrolled collapse of the dam could cause a release of the
sediment built up behind and serious blockage of culverts, resulting in flooding in downtown
Adams. Reconnecting the above and below sections of Hoxie Brook is also great news for the
trout and other wildlife that use the stream because they will once again be better able to move
freely up from the river and down from Mount Greylock Reservation along the stream corridor.
The Adams Conservation Commission is working with an engineering firm to evaluate
the plans by GZA GeoEnvironmental, Inc.and the Hall Brook dam owner, Hall Brook Holding,
LLC to remove the dam between August and October of this year. The South Branch stream team
will be working with Kelly Nolan, HooRWA Monitoring Coordinator, MCLA professor and
HooRWA board member, Elena Traister, and Dana Omand of Mass. Fish and Game, to monitor
the stream before and after the dam removal. Fish and macroinvertebrate populations as well as
chemical characteristics and physical metabolism of the stream, above and below the dam will be
measured for a period of about six years. The pre-dam removal testing is already underway. This
stream monitoring project is particularly valuable because data about the impacts of dam removal
on stream ecology is in short supply.
South Branch Stream Team clean-up activities
Two groups of teens from all over the country worked with HooRWA staff as part of the
Overland New England Service program from Williamstown to clean up the lower part of Tophet
Brook in Adams, Mass. This remarkable brook on the east side of Adams flows through a deep
ravine right through the heart of a residential neighborhood before making its way into a
stormwater channel and the Hoosic River. From the ravine, the houses above are almost invisible
and there is a feeling of remoteness usually impossible to find in a downtown area. Limestone
bedrock below the water provides a unique beauty. ‘Big basin,’ is the best known, though
somewhat treacherous and deep, swimming holes in Adams. In July, the Overland group and
HooRWA staff gathered several bags of trash, scrap metal, and recyclable bottles and cans over
two work days and the Town of Adams Department of Public Works collected these treasures for
disposal.
This summer, the South Branch stream team has also conducted clean-ups along the
Hoosic River berms south of the Lime Street Brid and Hoxie Brook and even planted flowers
along Park Street in Adams.
(Shelly – I don’t have a copy of the last newsletter in front of me and don’t know what
made it in from my last blurbs – you could say more about our spring clean-ups if that did not get
in last time. Caroline)