Land surrounding Broad Brook

Information passes on to our Environmental Association from Cheryl Burchell,

Broad Brook: Pleasant St. to Starrs Rd.
-Buildings erected in this area frequently dealt with flooding and or settling problems, due to the soft ground beneath them
-The strip mall where the old “Subway” was located experienced major damage 3-5 yrs. back (repairs were carried out) because of settling; the foundation on the east end of sunk 2-3 inches causing cracks to run in the foundation; footings for buildings were tricky to install because of Broad Brook and all the various paths it took.
-Way before my time, Saulnier’s pond (Starrs Rd. Area) was a popular place for public skating.
-Ducks frequent this area, as do deer, etc…
The Crusher
-Many years ago the town was responsible for its own paving; behind the old public works building they had a “crusher” that crushed the stones to make the asphalt.
-When someone yelled “Let’s go to the crusher!” it meant the area colored in yellow. [area north of Pleasant Street and between Starrs Road and Parade Street, near where the Public Works is presently (at the top of King Street)]
-The blue dotted strip running through the yellow area is just one of many sections of Broad Brook; it was a great skating area which was quite wide in places; most kids knew the areas to stay clear of due to thin ice, but breaking through the ice did happen on occasion; some areas were quite deep and respected by all; a hockey game in one of the wider areas was a common thing.

Horse Pond
-Between Pleasant Street and Marsha Avenue near King Street
-No one I’ve spoken with knows where it got its name
-Shallow swampy area, maybe knee deep
-Part of the Broad Brook flood plain
-Would freeze and allow a bit of skating with clumps of grass growing up through the ice here and there; safer for the smaller kids in the neighborhood
-Most residences (Marsha Ave., King St. and Pleasant St.) that back yards abutted the “Horse Pond” had wet, mushy lawns
-Deer still can be spotted here at times and musk rats aren’t unusual

More Memories

Mr. Surette's Interview June 27th 2007

Trefry’s pond, where Kent Building supplies is now is where Mr. Surette and many others would skate and play hockey. It was a huge rectangular pond with a circular island in the middle. We had fires there and tied our skates on the island. The island was approximately 10 X10 feet. The pond remained full all the times and was very deep and was bigger than a hockey rink. Exactly where Kent’s is now was where the pond was. He remembers this from the early 70’s. The pond could be full of people playing hocking or skating. No fishing happened that he recalls. In summer the pond was still rectangular and would stay pretty full. The pond was channeled in the middle and was like a water fall down the side to where the highway 101 runs now. Trefry sold the land to the highway. At the time it was all open land around there and there were cows and horses. They needed to make the hill flat to build. Starrs road was there and there were houses where Pizza Delight is now; and when they sold them the businesses grew. They wore no equipment when playing hockey. They used rocks or boots for the hockey nets. It was the biggest skating pond in town. It was all marsh from Kent’s right down to YJHS. The crusher, which was located behind the town maintenance building, was where they would also skate. This marsh area also fed into Broad Brook at the time. There were lots of deer, ducks and wildlife in this area.

Planning

Today for our Environmental Association meeting we planned out our presentation outline. It is in 3 sections - Past, Present and Future. For the Past, we need to continue to get memories of Broad Brook and collect any studies done on the brook. For the Present, we will continue to collect data on temperature and pH. Later when the new probe kit is available, we will be able to collect data on other things, such as dissolve oxygen. We need to plot on a map and graph the data. We also need to continue to gather information about flora and fauna at the brook and compare it with past studies. We also need to do regular clean ups at the brook and note what garbage is being collected. For the Future, we need to consider the Greenway plan for the area around and along the brook.

Today we also plotted on our large topographic maps the points where we have been collecting data. It was suggested we colour code these waypoints and have some kind of markers so we always take our data from the same spot.

Temperature #3

Today a group of students did some readings between 10-11 am. It was a sunny with a very slight breeze. For our third temperature readings we also used a analog thermometer and had some interesting results.


UTM: Temp. digital (Temp. analog)
32812 - 57751: 13.5 C (10.0)
32802 - 57767: 14.6 C (10.1)
32841 - 58218: 14.7 (10.0)
32909 - 58235: 14.9 (10.0)
32849 - 58264: 10.6 (7.0)


Where does this drain come from? The water coming out of it does not look good.

pH Readings 2

Today a group of students took our second set of pH readings. Between 2-3 pm under sunny skies with a light breeze we found the following:

32909 - 58233: 6.88 pH
32973 - 58193: 6.83 pH
32829 - 58250: 6.42 pH (drainage pipe)
32804 - 58173: 6.78 pH
33156 - 58339: 6.63 pH (just south of Starrs Road)


Can you identify these flowers?

Broad Brook memories

Thanks to the Vanguard's article yesterday, I was contacted today with information about Broad Brook's past. Vernon Doucette used to live on 39 Starrs Road, where the Motor Mart is now. Back in the early 1930's he remembers playing hockey on Broad Brook just north of Starrs Road about where the Walmart is now. There used to be a hill and a farm there. They would dam the brook in the winter and play hockey with rocks for goal posts. Outdoor ice skating was a popular pastime. They would build a fire for light; so they could play hockey in the evening. Once when they were playing hockey, they noticed water coming toward them on top of the ice. They followed it back to the source, and found a man some called Peter Gabe. He had made a hole in the ice and with a pole was fishing for eels.


Today a group of students took some more temperature readings at the brook just before noon. For some reason the temperature readings were cooler than last time. Both times it was a sunny day with a slight breeze. This time was earlier in the day.

32909 - 58235: 14.6 C (Burton Ave.)
32969 - 58194: 14.4 C (sharp bend)
32838 - 58252: 11.0 C (drainage pipe)
32797 - 57734: 15.0 C (just south of Parade St.)

Clean up

Today a group of student went to Broad Brook with garbage bags and picked up litter around the brook.

Some students saw some ducks and thought they saw 10 ducklings.

Another student has a plan to discover if any eels are in the brook.

It was nice to have a sunny day to do some field work.

There was an article in the Vanguard today about the Environmental Association's project at Broad Brook.

pH readings

On Tuesday, May 15 a duo of students travelled to Broad Brook and did some pH readings.

Here are the readings
32812 - 57749: 6.98 pH (south side of Parade St.)
32809 - 57774: 7.09 pH
32846 - 58211: 6.85 pH
32906 - 58227: 6.92 pH
32842 - 58250: 6.41 pH (drainage pipe)
32982 - ? : 6.89 pH (sharp bend)

We lost satelite at the end and couldn't take a GPS reading.

We saw 5 ducks in the brook just on the north side of Parade Street. And 2 ducks in the brook closer to Starrs Road.

Temperature Readings

On Monday, May 14 between 2-3 pm, a few students went to Broad Brook and took some water temperature readings. It was a sunny afternoon with a light breeze. We took readings from Parade Street to just below Burton Avenue . The temperatures varied from 19.4 C to 22.5 C. The one startling exception was the reading we took where the drainage pipe came out (UTM 32837 - 58252); it was 9.2 C. Why was it so low there?

Here are the UTM locations and water temperature readings.

• 32804 - 57747: 19.4 C (Parade St. south side)
• 32809 - 57774: 22.1 C (Parade St. north side)
• 32800 - 57989: 22.5 C
• 32758 - 58234: 22.1 C
• 32837 - 58218: 20.1 C
• 32910 - 58231: 20.9 C
• 32837 - 58252: 9.2 C (drainage pipe)

Along the way we were greeted by a trio of ducks just on the north side of Parade Street. We saw another lone duck on the Burton Avenue side.

Pollution Problems

On Tuesday, May 8 members of the Environmental Association made a trip to Broad Brook between Parade Street and Starrs Road. We took some pictures of plants and did a GPS reading (UTM). Can you identify the plants in the pictures below?

We followed a path that led us to the businesses on Starrs Road. We were alarmed to find the pollution and garbage that empties from a pipe and flows into Broad Brook.

Exploratory #2

On May 3 a groups of students learned how to read UTM coordinates on a GPS. Then they did some water analysis, checking out the water temperature and pH, which was 7.66.

Exploratory

A group of students are learning how to read GPS and use probes to collect data from Broad Brook.