Sometimes TRWA gets questions from people reading posts on the internet. One recent question was “is fertilizer poison?”.

The answer is yes! (read the bag)

 This is why bags of even basic turf fertilizer have cautions including:

• “Keep out of reach of children”,
• “Eye contact with contents may cause irritation”,
• “Do not apply near water, storm drains, or drainage ditches”,
• “Do not apply if heavy rain is expected”
• “Apply this product only to your lawn and sweep any product that lands on the driveway, sidewalk, or street back onto your lawn” (emphasis added).

Fertilizer with weed control have … Continue reading →

Some Upcoming 2019 TRWA Events

1. Annual Watershed Photography Contest Submission deadline is July 15th. Winners are featured in the Annual Taunton River Tide Calendar printed in September. Go to http://savethetaunton.org/2019/01/01/watershed-photography-contest/or grab a brochure with more information. Print-on-demand copies are available year-round

2. Population assessment of threatened Diamondback Terrapin (turtle) – 2016, 2017, and 2018. TRWA has identified areas for turtle protection partnership and follow-up in 2019. http://savethetaunton.org/our-work/turtle-conservation/

3. Biodiversity Day at Sweets Knoll State Park – Saturday, May 11, 2019, 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM. Join us for a day exploring and documenting the biodiversity of the Sweets Knoll … Continue reading →

The TRWA sponsored 2018 study of the threatened Diamondback Terrapin  (a brackish water turtle) are on the website under the “Protect and Restore” drop down menu at the top of our home page under “Turtle Conservation” and at this link.  Diamondback Terrapin populations occur along the southern part of the state including populations in Assonet Bay and Broad Cove.  Assonet Bay is a small, tidal inland bay surrounded by the shores of Freetown and Berkley and is part of the Taunton River Watershed.  A small freshwater river flows from Long Pond southwest into the Bay, which then connects with … Continue reading →

Our nitrate, total phosphorus and fecal coliform results for October are on the Monitoring Program Page of the website.  The October samples give us the information needed to calculate the 2018 averages for the water quality months of May through October that EPA uses in discharge permit limitation averaging (last column in the table).

Despite the fact that the summer of 2018 was hot and river flow usually low just before our sampling days in July (7/10) and August (8/7) there were rain events which temporarily increased river flow and dilution.  Our data reflects this in lower nitrate levels … Continue reading →

Please join us for the State of the Taunton Watershed Workshop: Building Partnerships for Progress on October 1, 2018, from 8:30 to 1:00 at Fall River Heritage State park.  Click here to see the draft program.

The September nitrate, total phosphorus and fecal coliform results have been added to our 2018 monitoring results summary spreadsheet and the Monitoring Results Page on the website.  We had rain before our sampling event which temporarily increased river flow.  We had the same thing happen before our July and August sampling events as well.  In the low gradient Taunton River (20 feet elevation change in 40 miles of river) summer storms increase river flow for several days until the river drops back to low flow conditions.

Despite the temporarily higher than usual river flow on our September 12th sampling date, … Continue reading →

The July nitrate, total phosphorus and fecal coliform bacteria monitoring results have been posted on the website under the Water Quality Monitoring tab at the top of the website home page.  The results continue to show high nitrate levels as in past sampling.  Total phosphorus levels were higher than July of 2016 and 2017.

Our monitoring continues to illustrate the importance of watershed wastewater treatment plants completing required upgrades to remove nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) as soon as possible as well as all watershed residents being careful to clean excess fertilizer off driveways or other hard surfaces after fertilizer application.  … Continue reading →

The June monitoring data is available at the website Water Quality Monitoring Program tab above. River flows were still high as evident from the difficulty our canoe trip participants had making their way under the old Plymouth St. Bridge on the Nemasket River. Water temperatures were generally a couple of degrees warmer than last month.

We again had 100% coverage of all sampling location which is a tribute to the dedication of our volunteers! Despite the high flows mentioned we measured 10 exceedances of our nitrate target of 0.4 mg/l throughout the watershed and 2 exceedances of out total phosphorus … Continue reading →

Great weather and participation in this years two day canoe kayak trip made for a fun time for all!

The group started from Oliver Mill Park on Saturday, June 9th traveled down the Nemasket River to the Taunton River and on to historic Camp Titicut in Bridgewater a former Native American campsite. Several families and participants camped overnight.

On Sunday the campers were joined by new arrivals for the second leg of the trip from … Continue reading →