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Date: 7/5/2022
SOUTH HADLEY – In an effort to help bring awareness to the Buttery Brook Watershed and the efforts underway to restore it, a temporary painted art installation of Buttery Brook began on June 21 on Main Street.
Called “Buttery Brook Under Our Feet,” the installation by artist Simone Germain is envisioned to promote community engagement and discussion around the watershed health and the feasibility of daylighting sections of Buttery Brook and removing the Queensville Dam at Titus Pond, particularly as they relate to the town’s ongoing efforts to revitalize the South Hadley falls.
The mural is painted on asphalt on Main Street over the location of which Buttery Brook is culverted through the heart of South Hadley. It connects residents to the local waterways and raises awareness about how the choices made by people can impact the health of the town’s waterways.
Conservation Administrator and Planner for South Hadley Rebekah Cornell said the project began after the town started to focus on the restoration and protection of their three watersheds, Bachelor Brook, Stony Brook and Buttery Brook. Bachelor and Stony brook are both on the north side of the town and have a large wildlife and vegetation habitats that serve as a larger greenway connection in town.
The Buttery Brook watershed is the most urban watershed in town due to the development of roads and houses causing a break up in the greenway connection. Because it is so urbanized, there is more pollution, parts of the brook culverted under ground and there are opportunities for watershed enhancement to restore some of Buttery Brook so it can be more of a sanctuary for wildlife and vegetation while also providing benefits in terms of planning for climate change.
Cornell added storm water run off is a big concern when it comes to climate change challenges of the future and that bringing advancements to the urban environment in the watershed can help with mitigating flooding and other damages that can come.
The Queensville Dam removal feasibility study and Buttery Brook watershed enhancement was the titled of the Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) grant the town received and led to the start of this work. Cornell said the outcome of the feasibility study is related to Titus Pond and its complex nature with the dam. Buttery Brook is culverted deep underground which means daylighting the stream (the removal of obstructions covering a river, creek or drainage way and restoring them to previous conditions) at Titus Pond is not realistic as well as the removal of the dam.
This is just the start of restoring the Buttery Brook Watershed and the mural that has been painted on Main Street serves as a notice to the public of the importance of the watershed within the community and a visualizer of where it runs underneath the street.
Cornell credited Director of Planning and Conservation Anne Capra for the idea to bring in arts to help raise awareness about the project in a unique way.
“The idea was, we do a lot of the scientific analysis in the office with our consultants – looking at like the hydraulic analysis of Titus Pond and what that would mean to remove the dam and restore that area - and the people and the rest of the town are not involved in that process and its not always something that always gets communicated to them, the work that’s being done,” Cornell said. “Then its challenging to spread the awareness of the urban watershed and how things that they do at a local level really do impact the watershed around them.”
Cornell says Buttery Brook is interesting as it flows underground and out in the open so it was important for the town to promote community engagement and open up the discussion around watershed health and how the choices people make have an impact on the waterways.
Cornell has said many residents have already expressed that they had no idea Buttery Brook was running underneath the road on Main Street and that is a early sign people are gaining awareness to the project and its importance. The mural will stay on the ground until construction is decided and the street is potentially torn up.
Restoration of the watershed is still yet to begin and is expected to be a long-term project, but the installation of the mural serves as a way to educate and inform the public of what is going on.
The town has received a total of about $4,000 total for the project with most of the project being funded by a MVP Action Grant and is temporarily painted on Main Street until the upcoming roadway improvement project begins.
Residents can learn more about climate resiliency in South Hadley at https://www.southhadley.org/1096/Climate-Resiliency.