NHDES Awards $2M+ in Wetlands Protection Grants

The New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services Aquatic Resource Mitigation (“ARM”) Program has awarded funding from the Aquatic Resource Mitigation Fund for 13 projects totaling $2,231,700, according to a press statement.

The NHDES ARM Fund, established by law, is a mitigation option for certain projects impacting wetlands and not able to provide other forms of mitigation. An ARM Fund Site Selection Committee is charged with identifying proposals to be funded by selecting high priority projects that most effectively compensate for the loss of functions and values from the projects that paid into the Fund. According to the law, the projects determined to be appropriate for receipt of ARM Fund monies are subject to approval by the US Army Corps of Engineers and the NH Wetlands Council.

Projects receiving funds include:

Androscoggin River Service Area

$61,000 to permanently protect 6.6 acres of land to add to the Milan Community Forest, which will be protected through a conservation easement. A management plan will be written with an objective for habitat protection. The proposed acquisition is located on the Androscoggin River with approximately 420 feet of river frontage. Approximately 13% of the parcel is in the 100 year flood plain.

Salmon Falls to Piscataqua River Service Area

$190,500 to restore a total of five acres of oyster reef to improve water quality in the Great Bay Estuary (GBE). Secondary goals and benefits of the project will restore fish and aquatic habitat, ecological integrity, and wetland dependent wildlife habitat. The two restoration tracts will be located adjacent to existing restoration areas, creating a contiguous twelve-acre reef block in the GBE in Greenland.

$135,000 for a multi-habitat restoration project in Cutts Cove, Portsmouth along the slope of a City Park property. Restoration includes portions of Cutts Cove with habitats that are absent or poorly functioning by: 1) enhancing the diversity and quality of 90,000 sq ft of mudflat habitat through addition of native shell substrate; 2) Removal of 700 linear feet of armoring along the Cutts Cove shoreline; and 3) Improved connections to marsh and upland along 700 linear feet of artificial shoreline providing for habitat. The added structure for mudflats using shell will increase heterogeneity of substrate and support greater benthic diversity, important as prey items for higher trophic levels (including fish).

$148,000 to purchase 195 acres of land in fee from three separate entities, and create a new forest reservation in the towns of Durham, Madbury and Lee. The conservation parcel contains 84 acres of wetlands, 5,100 linear feet of frontage on the Oyster River which is the drinking water source for the Town of Durham and UNH, 800 feet of frontage on Dube Brook, and overlies an aquifer. Three confirmed vernal pools are on the parcel with several rare plants as well as documentation for Blanding’s turtles and American eel with 12 other occurrences of rare and threatened wildlife within the Oyster River corridor.

Merrimack River Service Area

$180,000 for stream passage improvements on McQuesten Brook in Bedford. The project proposes the installation of an appropriately sized (14-foot width) stream crossing at Eastman Avenue and fully daylighting McQuesten Brook at Wathen Road through culvert and road fill removal to increase hydraulic and sediment transport capacity throughout the reach. Restoring full aquatic organism passage at both Eastman Avenue and Wathen Road will increase access to about 1,950 feet of McQuesten Brook. A previous ARM Fund grant provided funds for the removal of dams in Manchester to improve fisheries habitat and stream connectivity upstream of this location.

$70,000 to acquire a conservation easement on a 101-acre Goffstown property which abuts and expands the existing 126-acre Blackbriar Woods Preserve. The project will provide protection for 23.24 acres of wetlands, a third of which are designated Prime Wetlands along the entire southern boundary, 13 vernal pools, 2,900 linear feet of Black Brook. The property also has over 3,000 linear feet of intermittent streams and approximately 4 acres of beaver ponds. There are documented sightings of Blanding’s and Wood Turtles on the property.

$300,000 for the acquisition of two parcels located off of Lakeview Road and West Parish Road in the Penacook Lake Watershed. Penacook Lake is the City of Concord’s primary source of drinking water and is designated as a class “A” water body. The majority of the property consists of forested upland, with sloping hills that drain toward the lake, and contains palustrine wetlands, intermittent and perennial streams, and vernal pools. Acquisition of the land will link other protected land in the area, adding to a block of approximately 900 acres of conservation land within the Penacook Lake Watershed.

$217,200 to permanently protect two Pittsfield properties with more than 500 acres in the Wild Goose Pond watershed. The proposed conservation easements include 38 wetland areas covering over 68 acres (including 12 vernal pools), over one mile of riparian habitat, and 1,000 linear feet of frontage on Wild Goose Pond. The project includes six restoration sites which are associated with woods road culvert crossings.

Lower Connecticut River Service Area

$362,385 for the fee acquisition of 995 acres of the Smith Pond Shaker Forest property in Enfield. The property contains 114.5 acres of wetlands, 16,900 linear feet of perennial stream and 13,100 linear feet of intermittent streams. This represents almost 6 miles of stream habitat and 5.2 miles of stream‐bank on perennial streams. The remote 68 acre Smith Pond is the stunning wetland centerpiece of the property, and it is surrounded by other high quality wetlands and mature forest. Intact forested buffers will cover at least 370 acres of the property and over the long term should provide the highest quality context for all of the wetlands and streams, particularly as natural levels of course woody debris are added to the various ecosystems.

$147,615 to protect over 29 acres of floodplain forest, hayfield, and high quality oxbow wetlands through a conservation easement in Swanzey. The project involves conservation of 1,500 linear feet of the State Designated Ashuelot River. The recommendation provides support to restore eleven acres of riparian wetlands, which are currently in hayfield, adjacent to the Ashuelot River and areas surrounding 5.5 acres of oxbow wetlands, to be restored back to floodplain forest habitat. The NH Wildlife Action Plan ranks the majority of the project area as Tier 1, top ranked habitat in the State.

Contoocook River Service Area

$150,000 for the purchase of the 236-acre Brown property in Sutton. The Brown tract directly abuts the Forest Society’s 1,054-acre Black Mountain Forest, which was conserved in 2010. The Black Mountain Forest in turn abuts the 4,565-acre Mt. Kearsarge State Forest and several other conservation parcels to create a block of over 9,000 acres of contiguous conservation land. One of the primary goals of this conservation project is the protection 2,100 linear feet of both sides of an un-named perennial stream which drains off the property through the existing Black Mountain Forest and finally into Stevens Brook, a tributary to the Warner River. The property contains at least three state rare plants and Stevens Brook, overlies a stratified drift aquifer, and at least 60% of a 28-acre old growth forest and woodland that contains trees over 350 years old.

Middle Connecticut River Service Area

$100,000 to conserve 203 acres of forest land, 4,327 linear feet of frontage on the Ammonoosuc River, and over 7,500 linear feet of streams that drain across the site and into the Ammonoosuc including Black Brook and Barrett Brook, which are Order 1 and Order 2 streams. This section of the river represents the beginning of the upper section of the Ammonoosuc River which is extremely bouldery with rapids and is an excellent fresh water fishery. The site is located upstream from municipal water sources at Lisbon and Woodsville and nearly the entire area is within either the “Highest Ranked Habitat in the Biological Region” or supporting area according to the NH Fish and Game Wildlife Action Plan.

Upper Connecticut River Service Area

$5,000 to complete aquatic restoration work in the Nash Stream watershed in the towns of Odell and Stratford. The Nash Stream restoration project is a phased, multi‐year effort to restore channel processes and habitat quality/connectivity so that the watershed supports an intact aquatic ecosystem, including native coldwater fish. In this final phase Trout Unlimited will restore over two miles of instream and riparian habitat that was damaged by a catastrophic dam break and subsequent channel alteration and complete up to 13,580 linear feet (2.6 miles) of tributary wood replenishment in the East Branch.

For more information on the NHDES Aquatic Resource Mitigation Program, visit the NHDES website at des.nh.gov and use the A to Z list to find the program page or contact NHDES Mitigation Coordinator, Lori Sommer, at lori.sommer@des.nh.gov or 603-271-4059.