Why the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve needs an environmental education and discovery center
"We are certainly not holding our forests in custody for those who have destroyed their own forests and now try to claim ours as part of the heritage of mankind."
- Ting Wen Lian
"In the end we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand; and we will understand only what we are taught."
- Baba Dioum
In this heavily populated section of Massachusetts with the pandemic all around, many people are out of work and walking for exercise or just for something to do, all while hopefully keeping a safe distance between themselves and others. Locally the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve's paths, trails and wood roads have become a major attraction for many people. One of the most popular short walks is a walk to Assonet Ledge, which is in the Freetown State Forest section of the Bioreserve.
This past weekend we walked and talked to some of the people out walking to and back from the ledge. Not surprisingly we found few with any knowledge of either the human or natural history of the area. Most we spoke with were environmentally illiterate. This doesn't bode well for the future of the Bioreserve nor for the greater environment in the surrounding cities and towns where these folks live.
Back eighteen years ago when the Bioreserve was created, The Trustees, one of the Bioreserve's land owning partners, had planned to construct an environmental education and discovery center. Unfortunately a change in leadership and their direction also changed their previously stated intention. What an asset such a facility would be, today, explaining and exploring the values, history and importance of the Bioreserve.
Assonet Ledge has both a very interesting natural and human history. Although some locals and older walkers know the correct history of that area of the Bioreserve, most younger folk think the ledge and pond below are natural features. What exists today are the flooded remains of an old granite quarry that operated during the 1800s and into the first quarter of the 1900s. The arkose granite at Assonet Ledge is igneous rock that was originally just a large extrusion of molten material that slowly cooled. Throughout the northern edge of the Bioreserve are a number of granite hills that Assonet Ledge looked like before quarrying began. Hogs Rock, East Rock and Bell Rock are all examples of these granite hills. All these hills of granite are the visible part of the greater granite batholith that extends from Freetown, Massachusetts, all the way to Tiverton and Little Compton in Rhode Island.
Assonet Ledge was owned by the Fall River Granite Company. They hired skilled Italian quarrymen to mine the granite, They workers at first lived in Fall River and walked to work until barracks were built on site to house them. A rail spur, the rail bed still visible in the forest today, was constructed to take the cut granite blocks down to the main rail line in Assonet. Assonet Ledge granite was used in the construction of the New York State House, Taunton State Hospital, New Bedford Water Works, numerous mansions in Newport and building textile mills.
With a dramatic view from the top, Assonet Ledge presents one with a great view of the Bioreserve forest. This, the last large forest in overly populated and developed Bristol County.
Once abandoned by industry, the forest and its wildlife slowly began to return. Thirty year ago, before too many visitors and spray paint wielding vandals impacted the ledge, its face provided crevices sheltering roosting bats and various birds, like phoebes, nesting on the granite shelves. The accidental pool, created when groundwater and runoff filled the excavated quarry cavity, now contains a variety of amphibian and fish species. In the past, red, yellow and orange wild columbines (aquilegia canadensis) bloomed every summer in crevices among the granite. Too much climbing, trash dumping, spray painting, nitwits starting fires, illegal target practice and shooting of cans and bottles have eliminated them as well as severely impacting a number of other species that require a habitat of rocky ledge and water.
The Department of Conservation (DCR), a thoroughly dysfunctional state agency, is charged with maintaining and managing the Freetown State Forest.
Local DCR staff at the forest are not the problem. The rot starts at the top. The top, often political appointees, often have little environmental interest, but do have political connections. They only respond if forced to by outraged citizens and their local legislators. If vandals spray paint Plymouth Rock, also a DCR property, the vandalism is removed immediately and law enforcement is contacted. The Ledge area also suffers the same indignities not only from illegal fires and spray painting, but also from erosion and noise pollution from illegal and legal dirt bike activity. Just another problem DCR brass ignore.
A Bioreserve environmental education and discovery center and an environmentally educated and literate citizenry are the only things that will save not only Assonet Ledge, but also all the other human and natural history and wildlife wonders yet to be explored and interpreted out in the Bioreserve.
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Hillside cut away exposing the granite formation. Note railroad tracks in foreground. Cars were loaded with thousands of pounds of granite and traveled via gravity controlled by a brakeman down to the main rail line in Assonet. A locomotive would pull the empty car back up the grade for the next load of granite. This and following photos courtesy Barry French File.
The ledge has just about the same profile today. Note the beginnings of Ledge Pond, being formed by spring seepage, on the south side of the ledge area in the lower left of the photo.
Derrick to move quarried rock in center of photo. One cubic foot of granite weighs around 168 lbs. You don't want to drop that on your foot. No OSHA back then. Note rail tracks.
Quarrymen at the quarry. No fast food, no McDonald's in the neighborhood.
Nature is often quick to restore what man has altered. The ledge, created not that long ago by industrious Homo sapiens, now provides a new habitat and brings more diversity to the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve. All it needs now is for DCR to properly maintain, manage and interpret it for the hundreds that now visit this interesting piece of both human and natural history.
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INFO ALERT - Complaints, Concerns, Comments. This is where to send them.
Since our recent article on Assonet Ledge and on how the pandemic has many more people than usual out walking Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve paths, trails and wood roads we've received a number of inquiries as to why that area of the Bioreserve is such a disgusting mess.
The simple answer is because the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) is a totally dysfunctional state agency. They are too large containing a disparate collection of divisions, bureaus and programs. Most of the attention is spent on Metro-Boston. Easy to see where they spend their (our) money and where they can find the largest number of legislators to suck up to and cajole.
In a bioreserve one should be able to walk a trail, watch birds and other wildlife or simply commune with nature without seeing litter, trash, paint vandalism on Mother Nature's bones and without the stink, noise and danger of off-highway-vehicle (OHV) encounters.
Where to send your concerns, comments and complaints:
Commissioner Jim Montgomery
Department of Conservation and Recreation
251 Causeway Street
#900
Boston, Massachusetts 02114
Think he means it?
“I am truly honored to work with the Baker-Polito Administration and to carry on with the Department of Conservation and Recreation’s mission to protect, promote, and enhance the state parks system for residents and visitors to enjoy.
For well over ten years we've been leading monthly walks for healthy outdoor exercise and to explore the fascinating natural and human history of the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve. Those that have participated in these walks know that we only venture to some areas of the Freetown State Forest section of the Bioreserve during winter when spray paint wielding vandals, dirt bikes and illegal off-road-vehicles (ORVs) and various other "despoilers of nature", as John Muir would call them, are less likely to be encountered.
Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation's Mission Statement
To protect, promote and enhance our common wealth of natural, cultural and recreational resources.
In meeting today's responsibilities and planning for tomorrow.
DCR signed onto this.
The Mission of the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve
is to protect, restore, and enhance the biological diversity and ecological integrity of a large-scale ecosystem with diverse natural communities representative of the region; to promote sustainable natural resource management; to permanently protect public water supplies and cultural resources; to offer interpretive and educational programs communicating the value and significance of the Bioreserve; and to provide opportunities for appropriate recreational use and enjoyment of the natural environment.
Almost 25 years and we have the same problems. Shame on DCR!
Photos of illegal OHV activity eroding away a hill in the Freetown State Forest. A former nesting site for eastern box turtles, a MA Species of Special Concern. The most inoffensive of creatures and beautiful too. https://www.mass.gov/files/documents/2016/08/uw/terrapene-carolina.pdf
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"George, let's take the kids for a walk in DCR's Freetown Forest out in the Bioreserve to show them the beauty of nature at Assonet Ledge."
"Okay Mary, after we show the kids the rock formations at Assonet Ledge, let's walk the beautiful Hogs Rock Trail."
"I don't know George, last time we tried to walk that trail we found illegal OHVs had eroded it all away and it was full of mud and run-off."
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