Green River

    Growing up in Massachusetts, I have done a fair share of hiking and playing in the woods. My friends and I would always go to “the Nash”, race leaves down its rushing waters and see if we could cross it by stepping on rocks and fallen trees. Our parents always told us not to swim in it, though we never understood why. Only the slight stench coming from the water clued us to the river’s dark past. 

    My mom’s time spent around the river looked quite different from mine. Her siblings and friends still played around it, but the green color and rotten egg smell kept them far away from the water itself. She also remembers the trash that flowed with the current and the sludge that built up on the water’s edge. One of her brothers even discovered the body of a missing person in the river and another dumped auto parts he stole in there. My dad described the overwhelming number of times the river flooded the dek hockey rink and made one of the rinks smell like chemicals for weeks. Clearly, this river was not the cleanest in the 80s, but without the work of a woman named Marion Stoddart, the conditions would have been a lot worse. 

    The Nashua River, affectionately known as “the Nash”, is a 37.5 mile long tributary from the Merrimack River and flows from Fitchburg, Massachusetts to Nashua, New Hampshire. In the late 19th century to early 20th century, factory pollution in the river was at toxic levels from paper and textile mills. Because of the dumping, the water turned bright yellow or orange and was unsuitable for almost all wildlife. The Nashua River was in the top ten list of most polluted rivers in the United States during the 1960s. 

Pictures of the dyed Nashua River in the 1960s. 

    After Marrion Stoddart moved to Groton, Massachusetts in 1962 and saw the condition of the river, she decided to help clean it up so bay staters could finally enjoy it. She first created the Nashua River Cleanup Committee that was led by politically motivated women from the League of Women Voters. Being women in the 1960s, they fought through a lot of adversity to get state legislators to listen to them, so they needed unique ways to get their attention. One of these tactics was collecting river water in bottles and putting them on the desks of Governor John Volpe and Senator Ted Kennedy. This group led to the creation of many new laws and regulations on both the state and federal level. Some of which include the “federal Water Quality Act of 1965, which gave states two years to develop water quality standards for interstate waters and to identify limits for pollutant loads to help achieve them” and the “Massachusetts Clean Water Act, which created a new regulatory agency for water pollution control, released $150 million in project and research funding, and implemented tax exemptions related to industrial waste treatment.” said Lily Robinson of International Land Conservation Network News. Their work even spread to protecting the land around the river by creating parks and protected areas. As their work got more federal attention, the name changed to Nashua River Watershed Association and began working on other tributaries like the Squannacook and Nissitissit Rivers. The U.S. army also got involved because the river flows through an 8-mile stretch of what used to be Fort Devens, so they became a partner in the cleanup efforts. 

    The Nash still isn’t perfect, but the efforts made by Marion and the Nashua River Watershed Association have improved the conditions ten-fold. The river is now open for swimming, fishing, and boating and is surrounded by state, municipal, and private parks. There are still warnings of E.coli levels in some months and alerts about polyfluoroalkyl contamination in fish (long lasting synthetic chemicals used in industry), but the remediation process is heading in the right direction. 

    The Nashua River is not the only body of water that has experienced pollution like this. Now, the Trump administration is rolling back on fines on industries for air, land, and water pollution and shutting down federal environmental agencies that do work similar to Marion. Trump aims to maximize the oil and gas industry in Alaska, revamp the coal mining industry, and wants to prioritize fossil fuels, all of which have been proven to damage the environment. Martina Igini from Earth.org says “One of its most significant actions was the termination of the Justice40 program. The program was designed to direct federal investments to disadvantaged communities disproportionately affected by pollution hazards, wastewater, climate change impacts, and high energy costs.” The dismantling of all of the environmental progress we have made will affect communities like the ones around the Nashua River. The beauty of this river and many others will soon be demolished if something is not done to prevent the reversal of these laws and regulations. It is important that we all work together in supporting environmental nonprofits, support state-level action, and advocate for the use of renewable energy to keep our land and wildlife safe. 

 A picture of the Nashua River I took in August of 2024 during a walk on one of the many hiking trails along the river.