One of the nicest things about Newton is that there’s a huge amount of time and energy expended by an army of volunteers, in various ways, to help make the city a better place.
If you take a look at the number of city organizations whose names begin with “Friends of ..” you’ll see the tip of that iceberg. Particularly for the city’s park lands, we have a wealth of these Friends groups. We have Friends of Edmands Park, Friends of Hemlock Gorge, Friends of the Upper Falls Greenway and on and on and on. All of these groups harness volunteer energy to improve and preserve a particular piece of park land that’s near and dear to their member’s hearts.
The newly formed Waban Area Council has just set up the city’s newest Friends group – “The Friends of the Quinobequin“. Quinobequin is the mile and half strip of park land along the Charles River between Route 9 and Route 16. This piece of the river is bracketed by the two waterfalls at Upper and Lower Falls and consequently much less known by the citizens of Newton than other stretches of the river. Despite the fact that it lives in the shadow of the better known Hemlock Gorge next door, Quinobequin has plenty of pleasures of its own.
The group is hoping to recruit volunteers from the Quinobequin and surrounding neighborhoods to begin to flesh out plans for how the park land can be improved. I’m enthusiastic about the idea because the park starts just a few block from my house and I often walk down there. From what I’ve seen with other parks in the city, a “Friends of …” group can be a great way of focusing energy and rallying support in a neighborhood for a local park. I’m planning on joining and hope the group takes off. There’s all kinds of ways the park could be improved. Involvement by the surrounding neighbors and users of the park is probably the best way to help get it the attention and resources it deserves.
Their first meeting is scheduled for March 27, at 7 PM at the Brigham House in Newton Highlands. For more info, check out their web site or email [email protected]
Congrats to the newly formed Waban Area Council for appreciating the park and rallying the neighborhood in support of it.
Jerry,
– What’s the condition is the trail? Does it have any gravel, or does it tend to get muddy?
– I found a link to a 2011 Tab article “Residents upset over new walking trail in Waban” – but the link brings up a 404 error. Do you know what it was that had upset the residents? Since your article says that there’s still work to be done, is it safe to assume that there had been proposed improvements to the park a few years ago, but they never came to fruition?
…did some more digging, and found your 2011 letter to the Newton Conservation Commission. So construction was done in 2011 to relocate the path, but the new path is less enjoyable and more exposed to traffic? Is the original path closer to the river still accessible?
Michael – It’s an interesting story. Yes, at the behest of the Conservation Commission, the old river-side path was blocked off and a new street-side trail was blazed.
Within about a month, people who used the park opened the old trails back up. Months later, the original river-side trail was pretty much back as it started. The new street-side trail has a mixed history. A portion of it is effectively gone now. No one used it and it’s now completely overgrown.
Another portion of the new street-side trail remains in good shape though because it forms a loop with the riverside trail and so gets a fair amount of use.
Going back to that episode in 2011 – it all started with the Dept of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) proposing to do some very nice improvements of the original river-side paths. Newton ConCom nixed that plan and instead insisted that the DCR build the misguided street-side trails.
Just a few weeks ago I saw for the first time the original DCR plans that ConCom nix’ed. It really is a shame because those proposed plans would have been a big improvement and brought the river-trail all the way up to Route 9.
@Michael – Aside from the problems with the trails on Quinobequin, the 2011 ConCom has a lot worse to answer for. That letter of mine that you mentioned was the first time I commented on a Newton blog (Tab) and since then I haven’t shut up 😉
Jerry, your 2011 story sounds like another example of a Newton political organization not listening to the citizens and mandating a less beneficial outcome for the citizens.
@Patrick – No I don’t think so. In that case there didn’t seem to be any political component. My reading of it was that was one specific civil servant that was at the heart of the problem. Her guiding philosophy on a whole range of issues was to always lean towards keeping the public out, as much as possible, from lands under ConCom jurisdiction.
I’m happy to say that the employee has since been replaced. From at least my narrow perspective, I think that was one of the most positive staffing changes made in the city in recent years. Her replacement is a breath of fresh air in comparison.
Jerry, thank you for the clarification.
The Con Comm has a set of rules to follow. If the path was too close to the river it may be more vulnerable to flooding.
@Colleen – Yes, ConCom’s job is to enforce the state’s Wetland Protection Act (and any local wetland ordinances). Many issues that come before them are pretty cut and dry, black or white based on the law.
There are however a lot of areas where the commission has a wide degree of discretion and they are not simply enforcing a clear prohibition. When it comes to walking trails and “passive recreation”, the local ConCom’s job is more about balancing a number of overlapping interests spelled out in the law – public access, flood control, habitat protection, etc.
When it comes to walking trails and public access, for years Newton ConCom tended to tilt very much away from public access. Similar trails that easily passed muster with surrounding town’s ConCom’s didn’t in Newton. I do want to emphasize that neither allowing/disallowing a particular trail was legally correct/incorrect, it was more how the local ConCom used their discretion under the law to balance competing interests.
There’s lots of evidence that suggest that walking trails are not only a great way for providing low impact public access, but they also tend to be a major aid in protecting the wetlands. A great example of this is the Blue Heron Trails through Cutler Park/Needham flats on the Charles River floodplain. When that area was opened up with walking trails some years ago there was all manners of nasty stuff (refrigerators, TV’s, etc) that had been rotting away for years in the wetlands. Since the trails opened there’s negligible new dumping and what little does occur is immediately spotted, reported and cleaned up.
There are a lot of promising signs that today’s Newton’s ConCom is beginning to come around a bit on some of these issues. I’m hoping the pendulum is starting to swing back towards more public access rather than the reflexive “keep people out” instinct when exercising their regulatory discretion over our park lands.
@Jerry: AMEN, Brother!
There was a good turnout (roughly 20 people) for the kickoff meeting of the Friends of Quinobequin last night. There seems to be a lot of interest and energy to start working to revitalize the park.
A dozen people volunteered to work on six different projects and a NewtonSERVES project is being put together in the next few days to mobilize the neighborhood for a concentrated effort on NewtonSERVES day next month.
All in all, it looked like a very good start
Jerry Reilly — Was that area ever really a “park”? Are they restoring something, or creating something?
Yes, It’s always been park land. It’s part of the DCR’s Charles River Reservation. So it is about restoring rather than creating. A number of the longtime residents who attended last night talked about how the current state of the park is a pale shadow of what it was many years ago.
At some point, once trails become overgrown, especially with noxious stuff (poison ivy, invasive thorns, etc.) they hit a tipping point and people stop using them. That happened some years ago on Quinobequin. In the last few years there’s been some quiet steady progress at beating some of that back but at last night’s meeting there seem to be quite a bit of will and energy to try to turn the tide back and turn it into a more widely usable park again.
My favorite little project that came out of last night’s meeting is that a few people volunteered to work on a“little bitty library + hammock”.
Someone started an organization a few years back called LittleFreeLibrary.org to promote the idea of putting tiny little neighborhood libraries outside of individual’s houses. Since then more than 10,000 of them have sprung up everywhere. My neighbors, Margaret and Mick Alexander have one outside their house on Rockland Place in Upper Falls and I use it regularly.
So the Quinobequin plan hatched last night was to pair a Little Free Library with a hammock strung between two trees in a nice spot in thee park. I love the idea
The old timers that remember usable trails and cleared brush likely remember less development in the area as well. There’s a great variety of wildlife there in that small strip of woods, I hope they find a balance to preserve some of the “noxious” places that are attractive to beavers and such.
The only planned clearing of “noxious” (i.e. poison ivy, and invasive thorns) is on or immediately beside the trails. The other nasty pest that they’ll be working on is the Asian Bittersweet that is pulling down trees on the Route 9 end of the park.
@Hoss: Hold your Hosses, Hoss! (I’ve been waiting to use that phrase for a long time…not because I dislike your sentiment, Hoss, just ’cause I couldn’t resist!) I’ve been living near the Rt. 9 end of Quinobequin for 36 years. The critters that have visited my backyard haven’t changed during that time. We have had turkeys, muskrats, Great Blue herons, turtles, deer, ducks, frogs, coyotes, Canada geese, chipmunks, raccoons, raptors, many other varieties of birds and other species too numerous to mention. (No beavers, to my knowledge…although I, at first, thought the muskrat in the pond was a beaver, until I was disabused of that thought by some research.) None of that has changed from the long ago time when the parkland was well cared for by the MDC to the present time when the parkland has suffered from what I call “malign” neglect! The only habitat that I can see that has been removed from the enjoyment of the park is human. (No, I am not advocating living there…only visiting to enjoy the river occasionally.) Last night’s meeting was very heartening to me. There are many people who love the area and who already have volunteered to begin the advocacy that this property deserves! I am proud that the Waban Area Council has energized this concept and hope that an even bigger community will soon realize the value that a usable and safe path can provide. Friends of the Quinobequin (FOTQ) will be meeting again. We have a page on the Waban Area Council website: http://www.wabanareacouncil.com that will have more info on our next FOTQ meetings.
Sallee Lipshutz — does the Quinobequin association have a set of by-laws or something that limit what they plan to trail restoration and not something more grand such as canoe ramps, park benches and tables and similar changes other than a hammock and books? Looking for by-laws, thanks
No by-laws as yet…1st meeting to discuss everybody’s ideas…meeting posted and advertised as per Open Meeting Law and held in ADA compliant venue. Sub-group of Waban Area Council so as to facilitate inter-governmental jurisdiction hurdles. WAC has by-laws. See our website. We’d love to have you join us at our future meetings!