Awcomin Salt Marsh a Thriving Habitat Again

The fish and birds came flocking back to the marsh as if someone had put up a "Free Food" sign that only they could read.  After more than 60 years of being a virtual wasteland of overgrown weeds and mosquito larvae, the 30-acre Awcomin Salt Marsh has been reborn.

According to Ted Diers, program manager for the New Hampshire Coastal Program, the marsh has seen such a dramatic return of wildlife in a very short period of time, that it already has the highest concentration of fish in any of the marshes NHCP monitors.

"As we were making the first streams, you could actually see the little fish coming back in," said Rye Conservation Commission Chairman Jim Raynes.

The return of these species is a result of a number of state and Federal groups working together over the last six years to remove more than 100,000 cubic yards (9,000 dump truck loads) of fill from the marsh, creating a new tidal creek system and open water habitat.

According to local online newsletter Rye Reflections, "Dredging from Rye Harbor in 1941 and 1962 covered the marsh with an unyielding, unbreathing blanket of fill."

For 30 years, the marsh contained no aquatic life of any significance and housed only invasive foreign plants.

While small projects were undertaken during the 1990s to remove some of the fill, it wasn’t until 2001 that a variety of agencies got together to solve the problem.

They included the town of Rye, New Hampshire Coastal Program, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the University of New Hampshire, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Ducks Unlimited, N.H. Department of Resources and Economic Development, Corporate Restoration Wetlands Partnership, Conservation Law Foundation and Jacques Whitford.

Diers said the project cost nearly $750,000 and was funded primarily by Rye, the Natural Resources Conservation Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which contributed $500,000.

Altogether, Raynes said, they have improved more than 400 acres of marshland since 1994, with Awcomin being one of their last projects.

"It took a little longer than we expected," said Raynes. "But the sun is going to shine on it."
(By Noah Farr courtesy of the Portsmouth Herald)