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The Hippo Press

January 28, 2010

Supplemental to

Water world - A look at the Merrimack River

See full article.

By Jeff Mucciarone jmucciarone@hippopress.com

River facts

• In 1809, a small textile factory was built to spin yarn in Manchester.
• Most of the bricks from early buildings in the area came from Hooksett, where the Merrimack River banks were filled with marine blue clay. The clay was dried into bricks.
• Eddy Road in Manchester was named for a swirling eddy in the river that was notorious for being dangerous for boaters.
• “Amoskeag” means place of many fish.
• It’s unclear but “Merrimack” could mean place of swift water.

Emerging contaminants

Not all contamination concerns are over traditional sources of pollution, like manufacturing or sewage overflow.

Emerging contaminants, mostly from pharmaceutical drugs, are a reality that is difficult to quantify at the moment but could prove particularly problematic for waterways.

“We’re using more and there’s more of us using them,” said Tracie Sales, with the Merrimack River Watershed Council of the drugs that could affect the river and its inhabitants in unpredictable ways.

It’s hard to know what the effect has been or could be on aquatic life. It’s also not a situation where people are necessarily doing anything wrong. Many are told to flush old pharmaceuticals to prevent anyone else from using them.

During testing in the Merrimack, biologists found the presence of 20 pharmaceutical elements and drugs.

“Wastewater plants don’t have a process for treatment,” Sales said.

“How much is too much?” Sales said. “I don’t think anybody really knows the answer.”

There are studies suggesting the presence of some drugs can cause fish to change sex. Canadian biologists found that estrogen, presumably from birth control pills, was affecting small fish species living downstream of wastewater discharges, according to an article on www.physorg.com. Biologists found male fish that were exposed to estrogen began to produce egg protein as females naturally would. Estrogen can also alter sexual maturation in females. The article said the estrogen can essentially wipe out populations of small fish.

The state has no policy on disposing of unused medication. The Northern New England Poison Control Center promotes placing all pills in a plastic bag with other undesirable materials and throwing them away.

Brood stock salmon

The salmon collected at the Essex Dam in Lawrence are taken to a hatchery for three to four years to produce eggs for restoration. Once the breeding capacity is reached, the salmon are released throughout the watershed for anglers and are called brood stock salmon. During their time at the hatchery, salmon are fed in an ideal setting, which means they’re big, much to anglers’ delight. The salmon average between two and three pounds.

Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture

Brook trout are the only native stream-dwelling trout species in New Hampshire, with a historic range from Georgia to eastern Canada. It is believed that wild brook trout were once present throughout all watersheds in the Granite State. Increased stream temperatures, changes to water chemistry, habitat fragmentation, increased rates of predation and competition, loss of spawning locations, and the loss of stream habitat complexity have led to the reduction and isolation of populations of wild brook trout both in New Hampshire and throughout the species’ native range in eastern portions of the country, according to Benjamin Nugent, a biologist with the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department. 

“The remaining populations of wild brook trout are restricted to tributary streams that provide a thermal refuge for them,” Nugent said in an e-mail. “These streams tend to be cooler because of ground water influences and springs. They also often have dense riparian canopies that prevent the sun from increasing the temperature. Unfortunately, these smaller streams currently do not have the same level of protection as larger rivers.”

The Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture (www.easternbrooktrout.org) is a public-private partnership of state fish and wildlife agencies, federal natural resource agencies, academic institutions and local conservation organizations working to protect existing wild brook trout habitat, enhance and restore impacted habitat, and raise public awareness. These efforts will also benefit other native stream-dwelling species — brook trout serve as an indicator of healthy aquatic ecosystems. New Hampshire has more intact populations of brook trout ? meaning more than 50 percent of a sub-watershed’s habitat is occupied by wild brook trout ? when compared to the southern portions of the species’ eastern range, according to Nugent.

Brook trout depend on cold, well-oxygenated water and access to a variety of aquatic habitats. If streams become too warm and oxygen-deprived, wild brook trout populations can be significantly affected. This often happens when land use practices remove shoreline vegetation that provides shade, which cools the water. The presence of impoundments can slow water and allow the temperature to warm, altering aquatic habitat into something more desirable to non-native species, such as smallmouth bass. Stormwater discharged into streams from large sun-warmed impervious surfaces, like parking lots and roads, can raise stream temperatures, as well as increase the amount of sediments and pollutants entering the stream. Nugent and fellow biologist Matt Carpenter sampled an urban Manchester stream near Second Street this past summer and found wild brook trout ? a remarkable find considering the poor condition of the stream, which was plagued by sand buildup.

As development continues, particularly along the Merrimack River from Manchester to the Massachusetts border, the smaller tributaries are often subject to fragmentation by stream crossings, such as culverts, that do not allow fish species to move freely through them. This can further isolate wild brook trout populations. State Fish and Game biologists are trying to determine the locations of isolated cold water streams within the Merrimack River Watershed, Nugent said.

“Once these locations are determined, we will have an opportunity to comment on pending construction projects so that the impacts to wild brook trout are less,” Nugent said.

Watchdogs

• New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services (des.nh.gov) 271-3503, 29 Hazen Drive, Concord, NH 03301
• New Hampshire Fish and Game Department (www.wildlife.state.nh.us) 271-3211, 11 Hazen Drive, Concord, NH 03301 
• United States Fish and Wildlife Service (www.fws.gov) 978-465-5753, Old Mountain Road, Greenfield/Temple, NH 03468
• Merrimack River Watershed Council (www.merrimack.org) 978-275-0120, 600 Suffolk St., Fifth Floor, Lowell, MA 01854
• Upper Merrimack River Watershed Advisory Council (www.merrimackriver.org) 796-2615, PO Box 3019, Boscawen, NH 03303
• American Rivers (www.americanrivers.org) 413-585-5896, 516 Westhampton Road, Northampton, MA 01062

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