Maya Angelou gave sound life advice when she said, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” Time and again humans often make decisions without thinking about what those choices will do now and thereby, inadvertently or intentionally, pass off the repercussions to generations down the road to remedy and manage. As colonists spread throughout New England, this is what happened when over 3,000 dams were built in the midst of previously freely flowing rivers. Luckily, one of those generational members to inherit, remedy, and manage these obstructive relics and serve as a guardian and advocate for the Jones River watershed is Pine DuBois -Director of the Jones River Watershed Association in Kingston.
The Jones River Watershed came about the same way many environmentally focused nonprofits do: concerned and engaged citizens. In 1985, residents in the area were feeling the impact from decades of compounded damage to the quality and depletion of their basin water supply via mismanaged and manmade diversions impacting Silver Lake, as well as noting the long-term harm the many concrete dams had caused for centuries to local ecosystems. The Jones River watershed may be a small coastal ecosystem, but its relationship to the globally significant Gulf of Maine is closely tied and in need of regulating and protecting.
To help others understand the unique nature of the area, DuBois starts back in the Ice Age. “Thousands of years ago, an ice lobe a mile high began to move and retreat to the Jones River Valley. It created the current landscape and also, Silver Lake. Silver Lake is not a shallow pond like many in the area, it is 80ft deep at its deepest point! It was also the highest quality of water -until humans came along and started causing problems.” In 1899, Brockton obtained the legal rights to Silver Lake and unfortunately, its depletion and damage picked up shortly after. Between the 1920’s-50’s, the water supply began to run low -largely due to disruption from dams and high public strain on the supply in the area. “By 1960, Brockton was out of water, so they began diverting water from Monponsett and Furnace ponds -which polluted Silver Lake.”
In 1985, The Massachusetts Water Management Act (M.G.L. c. 21G) was enacted to address growing concerns about the sustainable use of the Commonwealth’s water resources. Still, there was a section in the act that allowed exceptions to be made for pre-existing water supply and demand issues, and Silver Lake was further stressed with limited natural resources. “They drained Silver Lake 38ft down from natural levels -a huge ecological trauma for the area,” says DuBois. Kingston is continually affected by the management of Silver Lake as it is 17% of their watershed, but much of this water is mismanaged and no longer flows into the Jones River, so the Jones River is in a constant drought. DuBois explains, “At 7 ½ miles long, the Jones River is the largest river draining into Cape Cod Bay, but the way Brockton is managing their water supply has a direct, negative impact on three rivers and three bays: Narragansett Bay, Mass Bay, and Cape Cod Bay. Silver Lake is one of the 12 largest natural lakes in the state and we are misusing a geological treasure.”
One of the biggest pollutants of Silver Lake is Monponsett Pond. What were once seasonal summer cottages surrounding the water are now permanent, septic-bearing, year-round waste-contributing structures that have had devastating effects on the water quality and ecosystem. From 2020-2022, Plymouth County Water District completed a water quality study of Silver Lake and concluded that it was in the worst condition it had ever been in its thousands of years of existence. The study showed heavy amounts of phosphorus and nitrogen-loading cyanobacteria as well as invasive plants, all being introduced daily from polluted, diverted ponds. In addition, the Pittsfield site for the former GE facility, contributed extensively to the contamination of Silver Lake with their discharge methods and high concentrations of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB’s) and contaminated fill being placed on property that abuts the lake.
Though it may seem the fate of Silver Lake is beyond help, DuBois and the Jones River Watershed Association are working tirelessly to help remediate the damages caused to the water and intricate ecosystems established there. “We just have to keep watching and make note of things that don’t seem right and then get to the bottom of it and continue to push back locally for these towns to do the right thing. We have to make a fuss,” says DuBois. Thankfully, DuBois and her fellow volunteers are seeing signs of success in their efforts to restore balance and health to the region’s watershed. One of their main focuses in this mammoth effort is the removal of dams which would result in the restoration of natural migration and movement patterns for native animals in the waterways.
Historically, many dams in Massachusetts and beyond, served a crucial purpose (however ecologically unsound it was) for the development of the shipbuilding industry in the area. Mills and factories produced a variety of goods and products -largely for shipbuilding materials but also weaponry and everyday goods like shoes and tack. “People have always lived with the river,” says DuBois, “rivers give life in water, food supply, and industry, but using them to support communities didn’t always cause so much environmental damage.” DuBois explained that these dams used to be temporary, seasonal structures. “They would build the dams up in January, use them with the spring thaw and rains, then take them apart and let the rivers flow into wetlands that they would then farm for the rich soil.” In the late 1600’s however, a less seasonal approach took hold to allow increased production and profiting year-round and dams became concrete and permanent. As a result, animals like the herring and American eels that use the Jones River and other waterways in the area, were blocked from their natural patters of passage. This drastically altered the eels abilities and numbers in the ecosystem as well as the animals and plants that had an established codependency and symbiotic relationship with them. DuBois explains, “River herring and eels are ‘diadromous’ fish, meaning they spend part of their life in salt water and part in fresh water. Unblocking their pathways is one of the most important things we can do to restore our waterways.”
Eels are born somewhere out in the Sargasso Sea, out in the middle of the North Atlantic. The newborn eels make their way back to the eastern coast of the Americas and, for reasons unknown, they branch off and swim up thousands of different rivers along the coast. They migrate upstream as far as possible until they find a good, safe habitat to grow in. It has been recorded that female eels spend as much as 40 years in our local streams and lakes and can grow up to 5 feet. In the fall, the masses of eels slither back down the rivers and head out to the Sargasso to spawn, and thus begins the process again.
Eels also serve as crucial pest control as they are one of the greatest consumers of mosquito larva. While chemical sprays harm the environment around the mosquitoes -including the fish that eat the mosquitoes, eels eliminate large quantities of mosquito larva in addition to the fish consuming large amounts of grown mosquitoes that are able to hatch. DuBois raises American eels back at the Jones River Watershed headquarters and releases them into areas of the river where dams will not inhibit their passage. “I have released about 5,700 eels into these waterways,” says DuBoise, “They are doing well where we have released them and that gives me hope.”
Perhaps the best-known creature of the waterways in the area, largely thanks to the indigenous communities’ successful public advocacy and celebration of them, is the herring. Herring population and well-being have long been a staple focus for local watershed associations. DuBois remarks, “The explorers and colonists came to this area for the timber and also for the fish! We had so much cod that we made an entire industry for it. One of the things people don’t know is that cod eat herring. If you care about the local fishing industry, you need to care about the herring and therefore the local waterways.”
So what, exactly, is being done right now to help the eels, herring, and other aquatic animals and plants be able to once again move freely up and down the waterways? DuBoise, who is standing across from me at Forge Pond dam, points out several things the Jones River Watershed Association is working on. “Overall, we want the dams gone. They need to be taken out, but it is a careful process and it costs a lost of money, so it is a slow battle for each one. In the meantime, we have made fish ladders. The Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF) has been able to acquire the ability to require fish passage at dams, so we are getting help making and placing these ladders. They are measured and made to be positioned in water deep enough for the fish to swim up them, but also high enough to help them jump the dam. Still, not every species of fish jumps well -herring do, luckily, so they have been able to make some movement even when dams are still there.” A section of the Forge Pond dam has been removed but the process of cleaning up the residual build up of muck since its construction in 1905 is no small feat. “We have a dredge machine coming to clear this pond. It is a 20ft pontoon boat with an electric motor, a suction pump, and a hose. It is going to suck up the 3-4ft deep mud deposits blocking up this pond and potentially the river, and then shoot it out onto the banks which will nourish and feed the trees and plants along the banks.”
So far, the Jones River Watershed Association has removed two dams in the area. DuBois states, “We removed the Wapping Road dam in 2011, and the Elm Street dam in 2019. After taking underwater video surveillance and conducting studies at these sites post dam removal, the fish and animals came right back and started doing what they had been blocked from doing for so long. It is very promising to see how quickly nature starts to set itself right when we just get out of the way and let it do its thing.”
Even the headquarters for the Jones River Watershed Association is not immune to the danger and destruction of modern-day environmental practices and climate instability. Upon entering the Headquarters at Jones River Landing and Environmental Heritage Center -an unassuming and nearly tucked-away building snuggled up against the Jones River inlet, the viewer is met with enough pictures, maps, memorabilia, knickknacks, books, banners, papers, and chairs and tables to be instantly intrigued. An aquarium of baby eels sits near the back of the entrance area flanked by a tank of mosquito larva for their feeding.
Through the lively, and obviously well-loved gathering room, there is a boat-making workshop stocked with materials for making beautiful 19th century lobster boats and boat restoration. As we tour the busy building, DuBois points out that its very existence is becoming a battle. “When the tides get too high, which they do often now, and especially during Nor’easters, the water comes right up into the building -knee deep sometimes. I mark the water levels with each flood, and as you can see it is getting higher each time. There has been a lot of structural damage so far, and we had drawn up future plans to make it a floating building -like homes in New Orleans, but according to the water-level-rise studies and predictions for this area, that won’t even work.” How ironic that the headquarters where some of the most important discussions and decisions about our watershed and waterways takes place, is threatened by the unnatural alterations of the very waters they are working so hard to protect.
Still, there is always the argument of hope. “It is worth it -doing this. It matters so much,” says DuBois, “Our job and hope is to make people think -to trigger the process. These are millennially important natural resources and absolutely everything we do to them and for them -good and bad, matters. These issues will affect our lives and our future generations and so I just keep working at it and keep trying to wake people up.”
As I leave the headquarters and stand on the boat dock on the beautiful Jones River, a Great Blue Heron takes off from the banks. It soars upward -likely to where the great wall of ice used to reach, and it is impossible to not be overwhelmed, in a beautiful way, by the story of this place -to marvel at the mere thought of the chapters of transformation it has undergone through centuries and eons. It makes me want to be sure that my addition to the current chapter is one that won’t need to be remedied or healed from in the future, and if Pine DuBois has taught me anything about nature today, it is that I can best do that by getting out of the way and letting it take its course.