With two years of restoration drawing to a close at Old Town Hill in Newbury, final permits were received in early December for restoration work to begin in Ipswich (132 acres), Essex (111 acres), and additional acreage in Newbury (30 acres).
The Trustees now has 358 acres fully permitted with 916 acres in the planning phase, following the completion of design and initial monitoring work. The runneling phase of the restoration work is anticipated to begin in early 2022 at the newly permitted Ipswich and Essex sites, weather permitting.
Regular mosquito monitoring at the Old Town Hill site has already indicated improvements, with a year-over-year percentage of “dry” areas (where no standing water occurs to sample larvae) increasing from 8.9% in 2020 to 25% in 2021—a statistically significant decrease in standing water on the marsh, as its natural draining processes begin to heal.