A Natural Laboratory For Small Estuary Studies: The Reincarnation Of Town Pond

Abstract

Early maps document a 70 acre salt marsh encased estuary that during the 1950s was filled with dredge spoils by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. A number of stakeholders including Save the Bay, a non-profit advocacy group supported a restoration of this ecosystem and in 2006, the Corps of Engineers completed the restoration project. The resulting system offers a unique opportunity to observe the early evolution of a new estuarian ecosystem and provides a natural laboratory for short and long-term studies of the dynamics of small estuaries. This paper briefly overviews the stages leading to the present system, offers a set of experiments that will aid in creating a baseline for future studies and describes progress on a sediment survey currently underway.