For quite a few years a major re-shaping of our town has been in the works. It’s called the Herring River Restoration and, mainly by removing a dike installed at the mouth of the estuary in 1909, will restore natural tidal flow to one of the largest wetlands in New England. A large portion of the northwestern part of town will become considerably more watery. We will find out why what have always seemed hills are strangely called islands, why this or that “neck” is located well inland.
The benefits, according to passionate proponents: it will restore the ecological health of the estuary, make it a more effective buffer against rising seas of climate change, and probably reduce the mosquito population. (The dike’s installation was reportedly pushed by people hoping to make us more tourist-worthy, by improving the mosquito situation, which apparently didn’t work out. )
While “returning to its natural state” has a nice ring to it, in the past 100 plus years some people have come to be fond of the unnatural situation created by the dike. Dozens of houses that have been built during that time will be impacted in one way or another. A couple of holes of the local golf course lie in the Herring River tidal plain and will need to be reconfigured.
Among possible losses is High Toss Road. High Toss is a sand road skirting what used to be a neck and then heading across the former Herring River tidal plain, which now has a lot of trees growing in it. In a hearing this past winter, people let the engineers working on the project know that wanted to keep what they regard as a valuable recreational asset. People use it for walking, jogging, riding horses, access by car to put kayaks in what’s left of the Herring River.
Eliminating the road (Option A) would in some ways be most consistent with restoration goals. But the engineers went back to the drawing board and in another public meeting in early June presented three other options, B, C and D, increasingly hefty 1000 foot long bridges to replace the sand road, from a narrow footbridge to bridges able to accommodate cars and horses.
The High Toss lovers present were not thrilled with the bridge suggestions. Replacing the nice, simple road with a lot of (pressure-treated) infrastructure would make it seem less natural, not more.
At a selectmen’s meeting a week later a compromise, dubbed “A plus” emerged : keep some version of the existing road. Long before the 1909 dike, High Toss Road was one way people from the “islands” got to the mainland and downtown, although no doubt they had to time their trips around the tides. Let’s go back to that pre-dike, traditional usage, was the idea.
It seemed like a good compromise. But I see by the Friends of the Herring River website that their version of what was agreed on at that meeting is “removal of the existing roadway to the level of the marsh surface.” I’m having a hard time understanding how removing to marsh level is a version of “A plus” and not just plain old Option A. They say it would “restore the crossing at High Toss to its historic condition before the dike.” But wasn’t the road built up above marsh level long before the dike was installed, to make it function as a road?
Some clarification might be helpful.
It’s true that the most “natural” version of restoration would take it back not just to 1908 but to before Europeans arrived in the late 17th century and started meddling with mother nature to make ourselves more comfortable.
But here’s a vote for a reasonable compromise to salvage from the restoration plan that traditional sand road, at least at lower stages of the tide.
I for one would enjoy the adventure of having to be aware of the tide before you head across, an experience of nature which will get us involved with the town’s geography and social history.
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