FALPT participates in the Restoration of Marsh Island

Presently, there is a proposal to truck off-site the fill removed when the saltmarshes on Marsh Island are restored. But the Land Trust is supporting that the reclamation project be a fuller, more true effort to restore what was once at Tin Can Island.

The Island was quarried for rock, which was used to build those lovely cut stone foundations all around the Acushnet River. Originally, the site must have looked like the land upriver where Sycamore Street runs into the foot of Harding Road. There, a great bluff of outcrop drops dramatically to the saltmarsh bordering the river.

Quarry operations are cool. PJ Keating, on Main Street in Acushnet, just a stone's throw away from Harding Road, is by far the biggest in Massachusetts. It mines the same vein of bedrock which was mined at Marsh Island and Fort Phoenix. What did Marsh Island look like before it was quarried? The world will never know. Presently, the estimate of fill being removed is approximately equal to the volume of the mill building across the river. If you want to see what restoration would be like, visit Harding and Sycamore - Caveat - that is private land - be respectful.

How grand it would be if this Marsh Island site inside New Bedford Harbor could be restored in part to its natural elevation, and human beings could stand upon the earth and look with tranquility upon the factory buildings, the fishing fleet, the neighborhood homes, the winged birds soaring over the marsh and the sparkling sea. How such a vista might soothe the soul. Restoring the land, we restore ourselves.