Neponset River

Mike Ball reports on a ride along what will someday be the Neponset River Greenway bicycle path in Hyde Park and Mattapan:

... Like so many of the Boston-area bike projects, this one is stuck out there, largely isolated from both other cycling/walking futures and the larger city. Yet, this is another neighborhood that will benefit. Plus, this is the Neponset River Greenway and they are building it not coincidentally where the river has always been.

Judy Lehrer Jacobs describes and photographs the annual Neponset River release of Galerucella beetles, which, if they live long and prosper, will begin to eat away at the purple loosestrife that is choking local waterways.

While Worcester desperately tries to eradicate one beetle species, a group in eastern Massachusetts is looking for volunteers to help raise another species.

The Neponset River Watershed Association is looking for volunteers to help nurture Galerucella beetles, which eat purple loosestrife, to help control the pretty-yet-destructive invasive weed now choking off marshes across the state: Read more

You can almost picture the cows just on the other side of that hill. But this isn't Vermont - it's Milton, down at the Neponset River, across from Pope John Paul II Park in Dorchester. About 300 feet to the left of the houses are three radio towers - and next to those sit a couple of office buildings (in Quincy). But that's one of the cool things about the park: Sure, you can look one way and see the Southeast Expressway, and turn around and see the Red Line, but then you turn again and see views like this.

Above: What used to be the Mother Brook, from the Hyde Park Avenue bridge.

Anybody know why the Mother Brook in Hyde Park is being diverted into three pipes from the Shaw's to the Neponset River? General de-mucking and wall repair, or are they looking for something (Jimmy Hoffa's body)?

Bonus fun fact: The brook is the oldest canal in North America, built in 1639 to power mills in Dedham (although the manmade part only went from the Charles to a point just on the other side of what is now Washington Street, where it connected to a Neponset tributary called East Brook).

Dedham chimes in: Brian on myDedham wonders if Dedham should try to enforce the 170-year-old court decision under which at least up to one-third the Charles is supposed to be diverted into the brook; currently, it's only about a fourth.

Apology: To anybody who remembers when that song managed to top the charts. The river part popped into my head when I saw the brook bottom and now I can't get it out of my head and misery loves company, right?

Neponset Village is so large it would actually make Boston physically bigger.

Developers have proposed turning the old 100-acre Stop & Shop warehouse complex in Readville into a development of 1,850 one-, two- and three-bedroom houses. Key problem: Half the land actually sits in Dedham, but Dedham couldn't provide municipal services because there are no roads into the land from its side. Plus, Dedham doesn't want any more housing. So the developer has proposed paying Dedham a lump sum to let Boston annex the land. It would be the first time Boston grew through annexation since 1912, when it took over the town of Hyde Park. Dedham Town Meeting, the Boston City Council and the state Legislature would all have to approve (more from the Globe).

Boston already has a Neponset Village, but probably a bigger issue would be all the traffic that would flow onto Neponset Valley Parkway and other nearby roads. The impact on local schools might be another issue.

Aerial photo of the site (via MassGIS). The red line is the Dedham/Boston line. The proposed development would take down the large buildings in the lower center and would include all the land up to the housing just to its north and some of the land just south of the parking area. The white "line" heading to the northeast is the sole road access to the property, coming out on the parkway. Due north of the parcel, where the two rail lines come together, is Readville station. The squiggly line where the red ends is the Neponset River, which also divides Boston from Milton.

Tim has a couple of kayaks and we took them out on the upper Neponset River to explore this quiet waterway that forms one of Boston's borders. We started at Paul's Bridge, a 19th-century stone span at the Readville/Milton line: Read more