50 Photos from Our 50th Year

In 2022, the Mystic River Watershed Association celebrated our 50th year as an organization. With each year, we are moving closer toward our vision of a vibrant, healthy, and resilient watershed for all our community members. This 50th year brought more growth and progress than ever…and the best part is that the future holds even more to look forward to! Join us in celebrating these highlights from 2022 and help us continue this momentum into the next 50 years.

Your generosity, time, and ideas move us forward — thank you for your continued support!

Want to get a birds-eye view of our work? Check out our new Projects Map!

1.15.2022 | The year kicked off with this stunning shot of a juvenile Bald Eagle flying over the Mystic Lakes Dam. Credit: Karl Niemi

1.15.2022 | Winter at Belle Isle Marsh, Boston’s largest remaining salt marsh. Check out our work to build climate resilience and protect Belle Isle Marsh here. Credit: Daria Clark

2.1.2022 | MyRWA staff enjoy a winter walk at Blessing of the Bay. Meet our growing team.

2.12.2022 | Volunteers learn the ropes of water quality monitoring at Hills Pond in Arlington. 40 plus baseline volunteers monitor water quality at 15 sites every month in the watershed—providing needed data for our annual report card. Credit: Daria Clark

2.18.2022 | In celebration of Black History Month, Terry E. Carter and his daughter, Maya N. Carter, led an evening of poetry as a tribute to diversity on the Mystic River and the richness of culture and community across the Mystic River watershed.

2.21.2022 | This nighttime view of Chelsea Creek highlights the concentration of industry and critical infrastructure in the coastal region of the Mystic River watershed. This year, the Resilient Mystic Collaborative (RMC) released the results of a two-year groundbreaking research project to identify and manage risks to Greater Boston’s critical infrastructure from a potential major coastal storm. Credit: Michael Fager

3.10.2022 | The Mystic sparkles after a dusting of snowfall in March. Credit: Brett Hausler

3.11.2022 | Elo and Julie show new MyRWA team members, Dave Queeley and Natalia Bayona around Alewife Brook Reservation. MyRWA added five new staff this year. Credit: Elo Deneus

3.11.2022 | Despite being the most urbanized watershed in New England, the Mystic River watershed is full of incredible wildlife, including this Barred Owl photographed in Medford. Check out wildlife sightings in the Mystic here. Credit: Rick Olick

3.21.2022 | Celebrating the work of Representative Katherine Clark bringing $262,500 to Hurld Park Green Infrastructure project for recreation, habitat, flooding and water quality. Credit: Jon House

4.2.2022 | Wicked Hot Mystic talks to Chelsea residents about heat map results at GreenRoots’ Cool Down Chelsea event at 212 Congress Ave. Credit: Daria Clark

4.5.2022 | We are identifying trash hotspots in our watershed by installing movable booms in several locations and seeing how much trash is collected. This picture was taken at Blessing of the Bay and the trash boom is currently at Little Creek. Learn more about Trash-Free Mystic here. Credit: David Mussina

4.23.2022 | Park Serve Day cleanup at Macdonald Park in honor of Earth Month! During Earth Month, we engaged 236 volunteers and collected over 252 30-gallon bags of trash from the parks around the watershed. Credit: Sushant Bajracharya

4.30.2022 | Wicked Hot Mystic teamed up with other community groups working on extreme heat for a Heat & Health educational fair at the Museum of Science Boston. Folks from the Art±Bio Collaborative engaged visitors with extreme heat through art. Check out those artworks here. Credit: Daria Clark

5.8.2022 | The Mystic River Greenway bike and pedestrian path from Assembly Row in Somerville to Rt. 99 in Charlestown opened this year. Check out Mystic Greenways projects here. Credit: David Mussina

5.10.2022 | A clip of river herring swimming up the spillway to Horn Pond in Woburn. The Mystic River herring migration was the largest in the state for 2022, with more than 425,000 river herring passing through the fish ladder at the Mystic Lakes Dam in Medford in 2022, and an additional 20,000 passing into Horn Pond. Credit: Kim Provo

5.15.2022 | Thank you to all our runners, walkers, paddlers, volunteers and sponsors for making the 26th Annual Mystic River Herring Run and Paddle a success! Credit: David Mussina

6.5.2022 | Former Climate Resilience Manager Melanie Garáte and Watershed Scientist Andy Hrycyna are recognized at River Rally 2022 for their outstanding contributions to the fields of Environmental Justice & Equity and Water Quality & Monitoring! Credit: Daria Clark

We are honored to have received and given a number of awards this year:

Awards Received — Urban Waters Learning Network Expert Awards, Citation from the City of Malden, and Water Transit Champion

Awards Given — Municipal Leadership Award: City of Cambridge, Mystic Champion Award: Sean Riley, Dept. of Conservation and Recreation, Ripple Award: GreenRoots, Volunteers of the Year: TianTong Wang and Charlie McCabe, Water Quality Awards: Pete Howard, Matt Shuman, and Kate Adams.

6.12.2022 | Project Misik brought folks alongside the Malden River across two dates to create a "Yard", a space to highlight stories of BIPOC folkx in Malden. Learn about projects along the Malden River here. Credit: Khalil Kaba

6.15.2022 | Local and state legislators come together to advocate for funding to strengthen the Amelia Earhart Dam. Credit: Daria Clark

6.17.2022 | A lucky find, this laundry basket made our trips to the compost dumpster to deposit invasive water chestnut much more efficient. Credit: Daria Clark

6.25.2022 | A local family of volunteers gets creative to reach invasive bittersweet vines at Riverbend Park in Medford. Credit: Daria Clark

7.5.2022 | Celebrating herring monitors, who provide hundreds of volunteer hours to document the river herring migration, at our 2022 Herring Monitor End-of-Season Party. Credit: David Mussina

7.13.2022 | Summer trench team Andrew, Caroline, and Kayli, site infiltration trenches around the watershed. Infiltration trenches are an innovative and cost-effective approach to reducing a major stormwater pollutant in the watershed: phosphorus. So far 98 trenches have been built with many more on the way (60 set for installation and 250 more being sited). Credit: Andrew Luymes

7.13.2022 | GreenRoots ECO youth lead the way at one of our Teen Volunteer Week water chestnut volunteer events. Credit: GreenRoots

7.15.2022 | Deputy Director of Programs Dave Queeley and Watershed Scientist Andy Hrycyna present the 2021 Mystic River watershed water quality grades alongside the grades for the Neponset and Charles River watersheds at this year’s Three Rivers Report Card event. Credit: Daria Clark

7.25.2022 | Youth create models of a natural system using rocks, soil, plants, and leaves to learn about how stormwater is captured and filtered at the Somerville Community Growing Center. Credit: Paula Jordan

7.28.2022 | Here MyRWA Executive Director, Patrick Herron, attends an MWRA site walk to discuss Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs). Combined sewer systems in the MWRA system and the cities of Cambridge, Somerville, and Chelsea discharge sewage directly into the Alewife Brook and Mystic River — these discharges impact public health, and the overall habitat quality. MyRWA is directly engaged to influence the decisions and investments being made to reduce or eliminate these discharges during the next 20-30 years. Credit: Patrick Herron

7.29.2022 | Watershed Educator Natalia Bayona discusses the importance of clean water with K-4th grade students at the Somerville Community Growing Center. Explore education programs here. Credit: Daria Clark

8.1.2022 | Environmental Science and Stewardship Fellow Kate Schassler collects samples from the Mystic Lakes for cyanobacteria monitoring. MyRWA was lucky to have a cohort of NINE fellows working with us this summer, contributing to water quality, green infrastructure, stewardship, and extreme heat resilience projects. Credit: Kate Schassler

8.3.2022 | We had a blast making art, playing games, and learning about Environmental Justice (EJ) with youth from around the watershed at our first ever Mystic Youth Celebration! Shoutout to GreenRoots ECO youth for helping to plan this event and for leading others in a fantastic EJ workshop. And a HUGE thank you to River's Edge for supporting this event and making this spot even more special with sweet treats! Credit: @ffcof2020

8.6.2022 | We loved partnering with Latino Outdoors Boston and Paddle Boston on three Em(barco): Paddle the Mystic River events this summer! Credit: Daria Clark

8.8.2022 | Amber Christoffersen leads her last LandLine Bike Ride as MyRWA’s Greenways Director before transitioning to the statewide Greenways and Trails team at the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR). Here she explains the Mystic River Crossing project to build a pedestrian and bike bridge connecting Everett and Somerville. Credit: Daria Clark

8.13.2022 | TianTong Wang, pictured here at the Malden Summer Festival, is part of our new River Reps volunteer program to help connect watershed communities to the Mystic River and our work at MyRWA. From his experience as a River Rep, TianTong shared “I’ve learned more being here than in my environmental science class!” Credit: Marissa Zampino

8.24.2022 | MIT Sloan students pick up trash along the Mystic River in Somerville. This year, 150+ college students participated in our stewardship efforts – we love seeing university communities take action for their local environment! Credit: Sushant Bajracharya

8.27.2022 | Community Organizer Marissa Zampino talks about Urban Heat Islands with visitors to our table at the Bunker Hill Development Family Day. Credit: Natalia Bayona

9.12.2022 | The community celebrates the installation of 32 firefly sculptures at Rivergreen Park in Everett. Credit: Mayor Carlo DeMaria

9.21.2022 | The Resilient Mystic Collaborative joins MA Energy & Environmental Affairs Secretary Beth Card and Reading officials and staff to celebrate a $2.1 million Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness grant to construct a flood- and heat-resilient stormwater wetland on Maillet, Sommes, and Morgan conservation land in Reading. This grant matched a $2.0 million federal earmark secured by Congressman Moulton for a significant nature based project that will help filter pollutants and sediment from stormwater and reduce local and regional flooding.

9.23.2022 | MyRWA partnered with 35 local corporations to help protect and restore the Mystic River watershed this year. Corporate volunteers helped remove invasive species, clean up trash, and count river herring through our video monitoring program! Combined, these corporations pledged over $40,000 in donations to help the Mystic River Watershed Association continue our work. Credit: Daria Clark

9.24.2022 | Andre StrongBearHeart Gaines, Jr., a cultural steward of the Nipmuc Tribe, leads a blessing ceremony at the banks of the Malden River as part of the Words on the Water event. Credit: Khalil Kaba

9.30.2022 | GreenRoots leads a visit of the 17-acre Forbes site joined by local and state officials, funders, and allies. MyRWA is excited to support and partner with GreenRoots in efforts to increase flood resilience, restore salt marsh, improve open space amenities, and secure affordable housing along Mill Creek. Credit: GreenRoots

10.6.2022 | Local youth test their designs as part of our Storm Drain Design Challenge for the 2022 Cambridge Science Festival. Credit: Daria Clark

10.15.2022 | Volunteers help to refresh the Mystic River watershed mural at the Mystic Lakes Dam alongside the original artist Yetti Frenkel. Credit: David Mussina

10.18.2022 | A fall walk at Riverbend Park in Medford, enjoying the beautiful shared-use path that was installed by DCR in late 2021. This path will join with the Clippership Connector (coming soon) to make up a 10-mile continuous greenway along the Mystic River. Credit: Daria Clark

10.21.2022 | The native pollinator meadow at Blessing of the Bay was first seeded in June and after a dry summer, we were excited to see the sprouts of grass and flowering species emerge this October. This year also saw the meadow decorated with 32 colorful firefly sculptures to celebrate our mission to restore natural habitats throughout the watershed. This firefly installation is a collaboration between MyRWA, local artist Carolyn Lewenberg, Offshoots, and students from the nearby Healey school. Credit: David Mussina

11.9.2022 | Climate Resilience Fellow, Mariangelí Echevarria-Ramos is working with Everett Community Growers and One Everett to study residents' experience with extreme heat and develop resident-led solutions in Everett. The project kicked off this year with a Public Health Assessment of Everett and a series of workshops with residents. Credit: Nicole Fina

11.18.2022 | Watershed Scientist Andy Hrycyna and RAY Conservation Fellow Watershed Field Scientist Jennifer Delgado check a conductivity sensor. These conductivity sensors are deployed in the Mystic River to monitor road salt pollution in freshwater systems. Credit: Daria Clark

11.18.2022 | November marked the one-year anniversary of the Malden Trash Trap. Over its first year, the trap stopped 142 lbs of trash from traveling down our waterways & into the ocean! The most common items in the trap were plastic & nip bottles, plastic wrappers, styrofoam, cups, & face masks. Credit: Rich Whelan

12.2.2022 | Members of the MyRWA team on the green carpet for the 2022 Earthshot Prize ceremony. MyRWA was honored to serve on the Host Committee for this event! Credit: Melanie Gárate

12.3.2022 | The Little Mystic Channel Steering Committee talks with residents about a community-driven project to create a climate resilient park on the Charlestown waterfront. Credit: Marissa Zampino