The Baker-Polito Administration yesterday announced that the Department of Fish and Game’s Division of Ecological Restoration (DER) has awarded $50,000 to Tidmarsh Farms, Inc. to complete the restoration of 250 acres of coastal freshwater wetlands in Plymouth .
“ This project, the largest freshwater wetland restoration project to date in Massachusetts, involves an impressive partnership of a private company, environmental nonprofits, and federal, state and local government ,” said Lieutenant Governor Karyn Polito. “ The ongoing restoration has already begun to transform the property into a more natural wetland system, and we are happy that this grant will allow the project to be completed in the near future .”
This project will restore approximately 3.5 miles of stream and 250 acres of wetland in the Beaver Dam Brook watershed, and involves six dam removals and the addition of 3,000 large wood pieces and thousands of plants. The project includes land protection and on-going monitoring elements organized by the nonprofit Living Observatory.
The project has been under construction since October 2015 with $1.9 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resource Conservation Service and $790,000 from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Mass Audubon and the Town of Plymouth recently received a $1,000,000 Landscape Partnership Grant from EEA to help protect 608 acres of Tidmarsh Farm, which includes the restoration area and surrounding lands.
Construction is expected to be complete in fall 2016, with several years of follow-up planting sourced from a native plant nursery established onsite as part of the project.