Eight Towns and the Great Marsh is a committee of municipally appointed citizens dedicated to the restoration and protection of coastal waters and associated watersheds on the upper North Shore of Massachusetts Bay. The Committee works to foster stewardship of coastal resources by heightening public awareness of, and restoring coastal habitat, identifying marine invasive species, mitigating coastal water quality impacts, providing technical assistance, and developing and supporting local research and educational projects. The committee members represent nine North Shore communities: Salisbury, Amesbury, Newburyport, Newbury, Rowley, Ipswich, Essex, Gloucester and Rockport.
The Committee is the upper North Shore regional representative of the MassBays Partnership (MBP) and represents the environmental interests of the Great Marsh. The Committee is partially funded under the Clean Water Act through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and is administered by both MBP and the Merrimack Valley Planning Commission. MVPC has been providing staff and technical support to the Committee since 1993.
Each summer the MassBays North Shore Regional Coordinator based here at MVPC, with support from local organizations and volunteers, completes monitoring for the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management (CZM) Marine Invasive Species Program to forward the protection of the Great Marsh. Rapid assessments of marine invasives are conducted monthly from May-September at five locations within the region (Ipswich, Essex, Gloucester, and Rockport). At each site, organisms from docks and dock lines are removed and inspected to identify a range of marine invasive species and their abundance. Last month concluded our monitoring for the 2022 season, in which we documented a range of invasives from star tunicates to skeleton shrimp. Next spring we will gear up for another year of sampling, and welcome volunteers to join us.
Interested? Please reach out to Hanna Mogensen ([email protected]) for more information. Looking for more information about the Environment program? Check out our program page.
