As
you travel downstream from the Neponset Reservoir in Foxboro, you
will notice the newly constructed Gillette Stadium, home of the
New England Patriots and New England Revolution. It was during the
Stadium's construction that almost one-third-mile of
"dead" Neponset River was brought back to life.
For
more than four decades, two sections of the Neponset River had
been placed in an underground pipe ("culverted") for a
total length of more than 2,000 feet beneath the parking lots at
the old stadium, making just a brief above-ground appearance as it
bubbled through the center of the former Foxboro Raceway
horseracing track.
Consider
that a natural, free-flowing river teems with living things that
help to purify pollutants, provide important wildlife habitat and
recreational amenities, and recharge groundwater. Burying or
culverting a river is the surest way to kill a river. A
culverted stream has no light, no biological activity and
invariably gets treated as a sewer, receiving flow from all sorts
of polluted discharge pipes. In the 1990s, it was clear that the
Neponset River was more or less "dead" as it passed
through the old stadium site.
Inspired
by the 1996 River Protection Act, and with encouragement from
NepRWA and the Foxborough Conservation Commission, the New England
Patriots ownership chose to restore the Neponset River on its site
by moving the waterway over and bringing it above ground through a
process called "daylighting."
Working
their way rapidly through a normally complex permitting process,
the Patriots created a new, protected river corridor along the
edge of their property, complete with native plants, riffles and
pools, and even dead tree stumps (an important fish habitat
feature).
Now
this revived section of the Neponset River, constructed only a few
years ago, is home to a variety of wildlife, as it makes gentle
turns through an attractive vegetated corridor alongside the
Stadium parking lot.
This
project is a great example of how innovative developers can and do
create opportunities to restore the Neponset River Watershed, and
in this case -- literally bring it back to life.
Learn
more about the Stadium river restoration project; listen to a radio
program by Laurie Sanders and WFCR.
