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Events & News
September 21, 2021
On Tuesday, September 21, members of the Sucker Brook Continuity Restoration Project team hosted a Community Meeting and Site Walk at the Keyes Parker Conservation Area, which was attended by over 30 people. Attendees varied from abutters as well as residents of a mobile home park north of one of the failing culverts to fishermen concerned about climate change impacts on Sucker Brook, a coldwater fishery. Town officials and a representative of the Northern Middlesex Council of Governments and the Nashua River Watershed Association were also in attendance.
Joe Gould, Restoration Specialist at MA Division of Ecological Restoration; Michael Rosser, Squan-a-Tissit Chapter of Trout Unlimited; and Paula Terrasi from the Town of Pepperell discussed the project’s goals to restore stream continuity and improve climate resiliency and recognized the support of the project’s major funders, the MA Division of Ecological Restoration and MA Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness program, which will allow the project to move forward.
Building community resiliency through these projects is critical as the town addresses the impacts from climate change.
The Project Team values your input and welcomes your questions. Please do not hesitate to contact us via the website.
September 17, 2021
On Friday, September 17, Paula Terrasi reached out to seniors at the Albert Harris Center to discuss the town’s recent efforts to identify Pepperell’s vulnerabilities as well as projects currently underway to build community resiliency to prepare and protect all residents from climate change impacts.
Throughout the update of the recently-adopted Master Plan and Pepperell’s Housing Production Plan, and the process of becoming a Massachusetts Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) Program community, participation from Pepperell’s seniors has been critical. As an aging community, the needs identified by our seniors range from affordable housing and the ability to age in place to Pepperell’s ability to provide the services our seniors require as climate impacts are witnessed.
As we experience extended periods of high temperatures and almost two years of drought, followed by unprecedented rainfall, the town must be prepared to offer services and assistance to all residents to ensure their safety and wellbeing.
Through the State’s MVP program, communities have the ability to apply for grant funding to support projects to build community resiliency by addressing action items identified during the MVP planning process. The Town of Pepperell was recently awarded a $492,030 MVP Action Grant for the replacement of two culverts and the removal of a dam on Sucker Brook. Pepperell also received $330,000 from the MA Division of Ecological Restoration’s (DER) Culvert Replacement Municipal Assistance Grant program and DER’s Priority Project program, which also provided over $55,000 and technical assistance for the project. The Sucker Brook Continuity Restoration Project is focused on improving drinking water quality, eliminating roadway and agricultural land flooding, restoring stream connectivity, improving wildlife habitat within the stream, and removing a public safety hazard by replacing a failing culvert before it collapses. The project involves monitoring efforts pre- and post-dam and culvert replacement to gather and analyze data for similar proposed projects in the Commonwealth, including water temperature, sedimentation movement, fish species presence or absence, and rare mussel translocation.
The Town of Pepperell, working with our partners the Squan-A-Tissit Chapter of Trout Unlimited, MA Division of Ecological Restoration, MA Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness program, and the Nashoba Conservation Trust, are excited to be working together on this project and we welcome and value your input.