Rewilding in the Watershed

  This article appears in the Spring 2025 issue

Project partners from three different organizations wander across fields of goldenrod and burnweed under a perfect September sky. From a boardwalk just a few inches above the wetland soils we inspect alders and cattails, wool grass and smartweed. A pair of hikers rambles out of a stand of pines on the hill, perhaps heading to another section of the Rocky Hill Greenway, one of the newest of Northampton’s permanently protected landscapes. Everywhere around us are the signs of health, of growth, of renewal.

This valley marshland is a landscape that is thousands of years old and yet wondrously new. We are directly upstream of the Massachusetts Audubon Arcadia Wildlife Sanctuary, which sits on the Oxbow on the west bank of the Connecticut River. Many more conservation areas like the Saw Mill Hills and Mineral Hills spread northwest. And yet, only a few years ago we might have walked here with cleated shoes on Tennessee bluegrass, following the path of a small white ball to a flag on a neatly clipped green.

Today, this section of the Rocky Hill Greenway is the first rewilded golf course in Massachusetts. Much of the former Pine Grove course was a natural wetland, a flood-resilient sponge that grabbed and held the tumbling Nashawannuck Brook for thousands of years. But that water spent decades channeled and straightened into a narrow rocky defile to drain the water off this particular land as quickly as possible. That has long been a common method for dealing with flooding and water maintenance, and not only at golf courses. But it is no longer, and perhaps has never been, a sustainable way to manage our watersheds.

Julie Busa discusses approaches to easing erosion at the south end of the Nashawannuck Brook. Image Credit: Eric D. Lehman

Reversing that process is the job of the next generations of civil engineers and ecologists, like those at Fuss and O’Neill (F&O) who redesigned the site on behalf of the City of Northampton. Leading us through the network of trails today is F&O’s Julie Busa, who has a PhD in ecology and leads a water and natural resources team of a dozen, which is “purposefully broad,” including scientists, engineers, wetlands specialists, ecologists, and planners. “That ability to work across disciplines and bring all those different perspectives to the project is part of what makes us able to come up with solutions that are unique,” says Busa. “We’ve got that real technical know-how of how all the hydraulics are going to work from the engineering side, but then we’ve also got the ecological grounding and understanding of how the systems want to behave on their own accord. Our landscape architects bring all of that together with the human side and design how people are going to interact with the space. It makes for a vibrant team and vibrant outcomes of our projects.”

Fuss and O’Neill started in the twentieth century as a land survey firm, evolved into civil engineering consultants, and now takes on a multiplicity of large and small projects throughout New England and beyond. With over 400 employees, they currently have twelve offices, including in Hartford and New Haven, Connecticut; Springfield, Massachusetts; and White River Junction, Vermont, that cover most of the Connecticut River watershed.

Chief Resilience and Sustainability Officer Diane Mas works just off the town green at Fuss & O’Neill’s sustainably-designed New Haven office. “We see ourselves as innovative problem solvers, using science and engineering to solve watershed problems,” says Mas, who has worked for the company for twenty-three years. “In the 1990s our water resources-related practice really focused on watershed management, stormwater management, and water quality. In 2004 we authored the first Connecticut state stormwater manual. Over the years we have been moving from siloed disciplines to a much more holistic approach.”

In 2011 and 2012, hurricanes Irene and Sandy transformed the way F&O thought about climate resilience and water resources, leading to a rapid evolution and expansion of water resources and climate expertise. “We are designing things to have a useful life,” says Mas. “It’s incumbent upon us to think about how we’re designing for twenty, thirty, or fifty years. What future conditions am I designing for?”

Vestiges of the former golf course are already disappearing into the rewilded landscape. Image Credit: Eric D. Lehman

One of Mas’s recent tasks has been to work climate resilience into every project, whether it involves mechanical engineering or environmental science. “Climate change is a force multiplier,” says Mas. “A lot of our society’s infrastructure needs that perspective,” agrees F&O wetland scientist Michael Soares. “It’s going to be more expensive for clients to redo work in twenty or thirty years, so we have to have the capacity to look ahead, to be climate smart, and to do good engineering.”

Soares is one of the team gathered at Nashawannuck Brook with Busa and Candice Constantine of Fuss and O’Neill, Sarah LaValley from the City of Northampton, and Kate Bentsen and Sabrina Braunlich of the Massachusetts Division of Ecological Restoration. These projects necessarily involve multiple partnerships, often using a mix of state and local grant funding, and that’s how in 2020 the City of Northampton acquired and permanently protected the 105-acre site with a goal of habitat restoration, stream naturalization, floodplain reconnection, and overall climate resiliency. Areas of the golf course that had included the clubhouse and other facilities were carved out for limited residential development prior to the city’s taking title in order to provide enough additional sale proceeds to make the deal work. These upland lots offer stunning views of the former course and the Mt. Holyoke range beyond but were not critical to the conservation values of the site.

After immediately undertaking targeted reforestation, soil aeration, and removal of artificial drainage features with assistance from the state’s Municipal Vulnerability Program, Northampton’s Office of Planning sought a partnership with the Division of Ecological Restoration through its Priority Projects program. F&O was subsequently selected to complete restoration designs to rewild the site by restoring the wetlands and the stream channel, removing the dam, and replacing or removing the culvert at the north end of the course under Old Wilson Road.

Frogs are one of many species that have returned to the Nashawannuck Brook watershed. Image Credit: Eric D. Lehman.

“Golf courses are closing across the country,” says Bentsen, an ecological restoration specialist who performed the ecological assessment of the site. “Many of them will be developed for solar power or housing developments, but for others like this one, there is ecological potential for wetland restoration. The City of Northampton took the lead restoring this parcel and serving as an example of what you can do to rewild a golf course.”

“This was a site that relatively few people got the chance to experience,” agrees LaValley, the Assistant Director of Planning and Sustainability for Northampton. “The city’s intent wasn’t to take this golf course away as a recreational resource. It was only after it became really evident that golf was no longer going to be in this site’s future that we wanted to make sure it remained permanently protected and open to the public.”

The city was also looking for opportunities to reduce street flooding and erosion. “Locally and regionally, we’re experiencing increased water flow. So, what’s the natural response to that?” asks LaValley, rhetorically. “The old way of thinking was that we need to armor the bank, eliminate local flooding and send water downstream, getting it away from a site as quickly as possible. But reconnecting streams to their floodplains and allowing natural flooding to occur where possible promotes infiltration and groundwater recharge, and in turn mitigates problems downstream.” This section of the Nashawannuck Brook has a natural upgradient around it, so it was the perfect place to allow the stream to do what it wants.

“It was a very wet golf course,” laughs Bentsen.

Michael Soares examines new wetland plants in the former Pine Grove golf course. Image Credit: Eric D. Lehman.

“There’s a reason for that, and maybe some places are not conducive to golfing. When the city removed the tile drains, the water stayed on the site longer and wetland plants immediately came back to the site. With a little bit of intervention, we can get even more ecological uplift and wetland formation.”

Fuss and O’Neill often helps in the initial process of getting grants, and then works start to finish on planning, assessment, engineering, design, permitting, and implementation. Constantine, a fluvial geomorphologist and civil engineer, designed the rewilding for Nashawannuck Brook to jumpstart the natural evolution of in-stream, wetland, and floodplain habitats. But she also must pay attention to the community’s needs. “Understanding how people want to use a space is vital,” she says. In this case, Northampton wanted to add the site to the existing Rocky Hill Greenway, forming a contiguous parcel and expanding recreational trails available for residents. Rewilding does not necessarily mean restoring unspoiled wilderness.

During the September site visit, the group examined a three-foot culvert that carries Nashawannuck Brook under Old Wilson Road and into a scour pool. Built decades ago, it is insufficient for the present flow, and it is not alone. Thousands of culverts across New England need to be enlarged and maintained, at the projected cost of billions of dollars. The company and others like it have been repairing or replacing culverts for decades now, and this cycle will continue for the next century and beyond.

In this case, the partners have proposed a different solution—taking the culvert out and dead-ending the low-traffic road at the Rocky Hill Greenway’s westernmost welcome kiosk. “Even the neighbors are excited about the idea of dead-ending,” says Busa. “Then we’ll be able to take out the embankment and have a broad, continuous connection between the upland wetlands and the downstream ones.” As the civil engineers in the group are quick to point out, this is not a solution that will work everywhere, but it is a solution that should be considered.

Walking downstream on a broad, meandering path, the team reaches the former golf course’s irrigation pond, created by a rock and earthen dam. “By removing the earthen dam, cutting away that embankment, and removing the outlet pipe, we’ll get hydrological connectivity,” says Bentsen. “Fish and other aquatic organisms will be able to move up and downstream.”

However, they can’t just bring a bulldozer in and dismantle the dam. It has to be done carefully in order to minimize the environmental impact. Likewise, the boulders and riprap lining the downstream channel need to be carefully removed in order to let the water naturally flow. At the south end of the property, where the riprap lining ends, the erosion caused by rapid runoff from the golf course has been severe, with extensive erosion of the banks and downcutting of the channel.

Before removing the dam, as a temporary measure, the city has installed fencing on the outlet pipe, to keep beavers from piling up materials—including golf balls—to block it. “Ultimately we want beavers back on the site,” says Busa. “But after big storms in 2024, we got nervous about the dam failing prematurely and sending all this gravel into the wetlands below.” When the project team is ready for the beavers to return, they will build beaver scaffolding in order to encourage beaver dam building. To remove one dam and encourage another might seem to be contradictory, but the sediment traps created by beaver activity are healthy for the habitat, and also act as flood storage and attenuation.

This outlet pipe and the rock and earthen dam of the irrigation pond will be removed, connecting the stream and allowing aquatic organisms to move freely. Image Credit: Division of Ecological Restoration.

Removing dams and culverts, planting seeds, and deterring invasive species might seem unnecessary. Why not just let nature “take over” and reclaim the land? “There are pieces of the site that would restore themselves very nicely over time, but there are other pieces that have been so modified and locked into place, like all the rock in the channel,” cautions Busa. “It can’t undo itself and really needs our support to get back on a positive trajectory, to be able to move freely and respond the way you would expect in a natural environment.” So, because we intervened in natural processes in the first place, we need to intervene again to get the land back to where it belongs. If humans did nothing, even the “minor” golf course impositions on this small piece of land would take many years to return to a natural state.

“This whole park is a reverse engineering project,” says Soares. “We are looking back historically at what the site was for thousands of years and using our ecological and engineering expertise to dismantle infrastructure and get back to the wildness that it was.”

“It’s not supposed to look like we’ve done anything by the time we leave,” agrees Constantine. “You’re not supposed to know that there was ever a dam there. That’s the goal. But to get there, a lot of thought and science goes into it.”

The team has set gauges to monitor surface water levels at the inflow and outflow of the property, in addition to inside wells to evaluate groundwater levels. They are sampling the fish and macroinvertebrates in the stream and watching the different stages of the restoration process carefully in both the wetland fringe and the upland. And others are watching, too. If this project is a success, there will be more rewilding of obsolete golf courses and similar properties around New England. “The Division of Ecological Restoration is looking at this as a first attempt at something they hope to do on a larger scale,” says Busa. “And we are excited to use this experience to help them.”

How are we going to live sustainably over the next century? How will our watersheds adapt to new conditions and new needs? Partnerships like this one—between state agencies, local government, and private sector companies—are trying to plan for those eventualities. “It will involve coordination of nature-based and hard infrastructure solutions,” says Mas. “It will never be one-size-fits-all.”

In just four years the Nashawannuck Brook site has already changed dramatically. Small tree frogs, owls, and dozens of other animals have made new homes amongst the pollinator habitats. Great blue herons hunt minnows in the brook. And people are coming back, too. Groups of seniors, birdwatchers, hikers, and maybe even a few golfers have enjoyed walking the crisscrossing trails. The recreational opportunities will evolve, as well, with some current paths sinking into the marshy areas and new ones snaking around new beaver ponds and through growing forests.

The project partners end their expedition at the top of a former fairway. Hemmed by tall pines, a long field of white wood asters and goldenrod stretches into the valley and up the other side, broken by the reeds and alders of the spreading marsh below. Walkers will continue to have this view for a decade or two, and there is no intention to do any active tree planting at this particular vista. But gradually the meadow will grow, shrubby vegetation will return, and then finally a robust forest will emerge. Different species will return and populate that forest. Future generations will walk this path with a different view and a different viewpoint. And that is how it should be.

Eric Lehman is the award-winning author of twenty-two books, including New England Nature, New England at 400, Quotable New Englander, and A History of Connecticut Food.