Top row:
Scott Matey, Rick Rosa Middle Row: Julia Cichowski,
Alicia Lenci, Michael Schruben Bottom Row: Trish Katzman,
Steve Whitford, Anna Krowczynska, Leah Neal,
Al Bozza Not Pictured: Robert O’Neil
NEADC November
2005 General Meeting
Jenny Wu and Scott Matey
Jim Caroza and Al Bozza
Julia Cichowski and Scott Matey
NEADC Officer
Reward Dive 2005
Coming Soon!
Assabet River
Cleanup
Text by Alan Budreau
The Organization for the Assabet
River (OAR) holds its annual cleanup the 2nd
Saturday after Labor Day. The Assabet is a tributary
of the Concord – it joins the Sudbury
in Concord to form the Concord River. Until
I got involved, it did not include diving. About
4 years ago, I joined, and started including
the cleanup as a New England Aquarium Dive Club
(NEADC) dive. As the OAR provides doughnuts
and coffee before the dive, plus latex and work
gloves, a T shirt and a Clean Up Your Assabet
water bottle, filled, and a pizza lunch after
the cleanup (at noon) it is a good deal! In
past years, it has been a solo dive- not my
favorite style, but pretty safe as it rarely
is too deep to stand up! But I have thoroughly
enjoyed this relatively clean and clear stream,
with green plants, fish and turtles. I was delighted
this year to receive an email from Michael Whyte
of NEADC that he planned to join me. The OAR
had located an area of the Assabet in Hudson,
MA where they knew that there were tires. It
is not feasible to remove a tire dug into the
bottom even in 4 ft of water without SCUBA (unless
you have arms more than 4 ft long!). At the
same time, divers alone are fairly useless,
as the tires need to be removed and disposed
of. Michael and I met the Hudson contingent
(OAR meets at about 5 different towns for the
cleanup) at the closed PC Creams on Rt 62 in
Hudson at 9 AM.
We got our goodies, mentioned
above, and waited for Marty, from Hudson, and
the man with the 2 flat-bottomed boats on his
pickup truck. We followed them to a bridge over
the Assabet, where there was easy access. After
putting the larger boat in the water, we geared
up and began the dive around 10:30. Marty followed
along as we went downstream, paddling. , The
water was warm - around 70degrees. I was very
comfortable in my normal wetsuit, except that
I wore a 1/8 in hooded chicken vest instead
of my usual hood, and leather gloves. Michael
reported sweating in his dry suit. Visibility
ranged from zero to a few feet. I spotted a
few freshwater fish and a large crayfish. A
very good sign, as crayfish can’t tolerate
much pollution. There were plants most everywhere.
At times it was so shallow that I was running
aground. Maximum depth was around 4 feet. Michael
found 8 tires, which it took the 2 of us to
dig and lift onto the boat, with help from Marty.
In addition, we found assorted small trash,
including bottles and cans. When we had about
5 tires in the boat, Marty managed to paddle
upstream back to the launching point and leave
them on the bank and return. While Marty was
gone, we reached a point over a mile downstream
where the river was barely passable -fallen
trees and branches pretty well blocked the stream,
as well as plants which completely covered the
surface. Also, there was some sort of animal
body with maybe a thousand maggots feeding on
it floating in my way. I thought at first that
it was a large bird or small mammal-say a raccoon.
But then I spotted the empty 2½ ft. long
turtle shell. I was able to move the plants
back and recover some floating bottles. At that
point I also spotted 5 ft long kid’s plastic
jeep and retrieved it. But one of my yellow
Force Fins came off- apparently stuck under
a branch while I was standing in the 3½
ft deep water. At this point visibility was
negligible and I had to wait until the water
cleared to find it. Meanwhile, Michael had found
more tires and put them on the bank. The bottom
was highly variable, and here was so muddy and
soft that it was impossible to walk on, even
with fins. We now proceeded back upstream against
the current. Total bottom time was about 1½
hours. With the negligible depth, we still had
plenty of air. We got the tires and other trash,
and boat, up to the road and waited for the
boat to be picked up, then joined the rest of
the Hudson crew for a pizza picnic at a local
park.
The Organization for the Assabet River has photos
on their web site: www.assabetriver.org/riverpics/arc2005/index.html.
If you then click on the picture of the boats
on the pickup truck, you can see the flat bottom
boat (larger, bottom one) and (from left to
right) Alan, Michael (admire the NEADC shirt),
and Marty. Scroll down and look at us getting
into the boat (we actually pulled our gear right
out, and never used the boat, except to load
in the trash). And, further down, see us in
action. Alan is wearing a black wet suit and
yellow tank, and Michael a blue dry suit and
gray tank.
NEADC Seal
Dive 2005
Great Annual
Fish Count
Great Annual Fish Count/Stelwagen Bank
National Marine Sanctuary Celebration-Saturday,
July 17, 2005, Gloucester Maritime Heritage
Center
By the end of the day, the
divers had filled out 120 surveys and identified
33 species. And everyone went home with some
kind of prize! Here is an article from The Boston
Globe
14th Great Annual Fish Count
- The 2005 edition of the GAFC was another great
success for this premier citizen science marine
conservation event. The GAFC generated nearly
2,000 surveys in the month of July. It also
boasted participation from approximately 1,000
volunteers throughout REEF's survey regions
who contributed directly to marine conservation.
For the fourth year in a row, the folks
at Stellwagen Banks National Marine Sanctuary
and the New England Aquarium set the single-day
GAFC record for involvement - they
had just over 100 divers complete 127 individual
surveys!
- REEF-in-Brief
e-Newsletter November 2005
Dive Into Earth
Day 2005
Dive into Earth Day 2005-Saturday,
April 23, 2005, Lane’s Cove, Gloucester
Massachusetts (44
degree ocean temp)
Dive into Earth Day 2005 was a great success
thanks to Dano Norris, Michael Schruben, Eileen
Byrne, Cheryl Hill, Jim Karos, Aaron Burke,
James Karos, and Anna Krowczynska.
The foggy weather
did not keep these divers from participating
in this event. Seas were calm and vis was about
25 feet. About 180 pounds of trash were removed
from the water’s edge. Mostly bottles,
cans and food wrappers. Much fishing line and
gear as well as plenty of plastic bits and plastic
lobster id tags. Some of these tags were Maine
lobster pot id tags. Dano found some green army
men (we seem to collect these every year here).
Jim Karos removed a hair brush from underwater
and his grandson James removed a golf club.
I also found a golf club along the coastline
as well as a few golf balls. What made this
day even better was that we finished just before
the deluge of rain, it was perfect timing. Thanks
again to all participants, you made a difference.
Want to participate in a cleanup this year?
You still can, check the dive calendar to learn
more.
2004
Coastsweep 2004
Tropical Fish Collecting
Earthday Cleanup
Canoe Beach Cleanup
Seal Dive >Learn more<
2005
Earthday Cleanup
Great Annual Fish Count
Seal Dive
Assabet River Cleanup
NEADC Officer Reward Dive
Nov General Meeting
2005 Officers
<<Story at left