We recently received email from a reader pleading: Can you please put out a call to help the fish unable to scale the ladder in Fuller Brook near Grove Street? We’ve been watching them struggle for two weeks and it’s heartbreaking to witness them beat themselves up trying and trying and trying. Setback after setback after setback…
As the reader noted, residents have been known to help the fish scale the ladder, but the hope here was that a more permanent solution might be in the works. That perhaps local college engineering students might have an answer.
Natural Resources Commission Director Brandon Schmitt tells us that the NRC has an appropriation from the Community Preservation Committee to evaluate relief to the Fuller Brook fish.
“We have worked with a Fluvial Geomorphologist, and a marine fisheries biologist with the State Division of Fisheries to explore what options might be available to help the white suckers,” Schmitt writes. “The main barrier at this point is that due to the stream velocities at peak discharge, there is concern about putting anything in the stream that would impede the flow. We have looked at potential temporary solutions (large sandbags, etc.) but those would create a problem if they migrated downstream and created a blockage.”
Schmitt says he’s “hopeful that we can find a sustainable solution to aid the white sucker passage upstream that also satisfies concerns about upstream flooding.”
The town has looked at various methods, from supersacks to a metal ladder, he says. The reader pointed to an effort in Weymouth that included refinishing the existing ladder.
Here’s a rough conceptual plan provided by the biologist, as an example, to Wellesley.
The town has also looked into possible state funding, but Schmitt says “since the white suckers are not identified as priority species, funding has been limited.”
I believe the renovation of the fish ladder was in the original funding for the Fuller Brook renovation project, but somehow was tabled.
Couldn’t the cement, at least the steps, simply be removed?
“since the white suckers are not identified as priority species, funding has been limited.”
Regardless of the value anyone may put on them, all fishes are sentient beings who deserve respect and compassion, and these fishes are suffering! Biodiversity is critical to environmental health, and all species are integral members of the ecosystem.
Kudos to your reader who appealed for help, for the people who acted to help the fishes, and to The Swellesley Report for publicizing it. If only the government were as caring.