Local, Place-Based Knowledge and the Political Ecology of Restoration and Remediation Along

241 Pages·2017·5.25 MB·English

UUnniivveerrssiittyy ooff MMaassssaacchhuusseettttss AAmmhheerrsstt
SScchhoollaarrWWoorrkkss@@UUMMaassss AAmmhheerrsstt
Open Access Dissertations
9-2009
MMoorree TThhaann OOnnee RRiivveerr:: LLooccaall,, PPllaaccee--BBaasseedd KKnnoowwlleeddggee aanndd tthhee
PPoolliittiiccaall EEccoollooggyy ooff RReessttoorraattiioonn aanndd RReemmeeddiiaattiioonn AAlloonngg tthhee LLoowweerr
NNeeppoonnsseett RRiivveerr,, MMaassssaacchhuusseettttss
Simona Lee Perry
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/open_access_dissertations
Part of the Earth Sciences Commons
RReeccoommmmeennddeedd CCiittaattiioonn
Perry, Simona Lee, "More Than One River: Local, Place-Based Knowledge and the Political Ecology of
Restoration and Remediation Along the Lower Neponset River, Massachusetts" (2009). Open Access
Dissertations. 117.
https://doi.org/10.7275/zm36-a676 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/open_access_dissertations/117
This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It
has been accepted for inclusion in Open Access Dissertations by an authorized administrator of
ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected].
MORE THAN ONE RIVER: LOCAL, PLACE-BASED KNOWLEDGE AND
THE POLITICAL ECOLOGY OF RESTORATION AND REMEDIATION
ALONG THE LOWER NEPONSET RIVER, MASSACHUSETTS

A Dissertation Presented

by

SIMONA LEE PERRY

Submitted to the Graduate School of the
University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

September 2009

Wildlife and Fisheries Conservation
© Copyright by Simona Lee Perry 2009
All Rights Reserved
MORE THAN ONE RIVER: LOCAL, PLACE-BASED KNOWLEDGE AND
THE POLITICAL ECOLOGY OF RESTORATION AND REMEDIATION
ALONG THE LOWER NEPONSET RIVER, MASSACHUSETTS

A Dissertation Presented

By

SIMONA LEE PERRY

Approved as to style and content by:

___________________________________
Robert M. Muth, Chair

___________________________________
Charles M. Schweik, Member

___________________________________
Martha E. Mather, Member

___________________________________
Krista M. Harper, Member

___________________________________
Rodney R. Zwick, Member

_______________________________________
Paul R. Fisette, Department Head
Department of Natural Resources Conservation
DEDICATION

To dad and mom who have never given up on me or my dreams,

and

The residents of Port Norfolk, Cedar Grove, Lower Mills, Mattapan, Hyde Park, and Readville who
showed me where to find Boston’s hidden river, and the many ways of knowing her.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it’s the
only thing that ever has.”
-Margaret Mead

“Happily he looked into the flowing river. Never had a river attracted him as much as this one. Never had
he found the voice and appearance of flowing water so beautiful. It seemed to him as if the river had
something special to tell him, something which he did not know, something which still awaited him.”
-Herman Hess
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to express my sincere appreciation to all who anonymously contributed their time,
memories, images and words to this project. I am forever indebted to their kindness in allowing me into
their homes and lives and sharing with me their baked delicacies, seafood creations, wine, tea, newspaper
clippings, historical documents, photographs, canoes, sailboats, stories, but most of all their friendship and
inspiration.
I’d also like to thank everyone who helped me with the logistics of doing field work in a major
metropolitan area where rent is not cheap and getting around can be treacherous if not downright life-
threatening, especially Paula Cantor and Magic for giving me the space I needed when I needed it and the
comfort and friendship I needed most of all, and to Libby Hopkins for connecting me up with a temporary
living situation in Boston in a pinch. And, to the Sarah Pautzke-Christopher Hawkins-Utu-Mikhala
household, Margo Shea, Kristin McClendon, Martha Mather, and Linda Deegan and Chris Neill who
gratiously offered me accommodations when I was out in Western Massachusetts.
I’d like to also thank the professional staff of various State, city and town agencies, and non-
governmental organizations, who all at one time or another over the past four years assisted me in locating
information, providing me with copies of documents and providing general background information about
the history, ecology and management of the Neponset River, including: Joan Kimball and Gabrielle
Stebbins of MassRiverways, Cathy Garnett of the MA Department of Conservation and Recreation, Rob
Breault of the USGS, Carly Rocklen, Steve Pearlman, and Ian Cooke of the Neponset River Watershed
Association, Candice Cooke and Valerie Burns of the Boston Natural Areas Network, and the librarians in
the Boston Public Library’s Hyde Park Branch, especially Barbara Wicker and the late Ellen Peterson.
For his patience with my impatience, and confidence in my abilities even as I doubted them, I want to
acknowledge the love of my life, Ernesto Brown. And, for their unconditional love and never-ending
support, my parents, Charlie and Dianne Perry.
To all the teachers and intellectual guides who have assisted me in large and small ways over the
past five years. Of these guides, I would especially like to thank Jack Finn for providing encouragement
and advice about the usefulness of my research to ecological and natural resource management
applications, and Julie Graham and my fellow students in her “Rethinking Economy” seminar, for
v
introducing me to feminist modes of inquiry and encouraging me to rethink my own research project and
providing me with courage to push beyond disciplinary bounds. And, to each of my committee members –
Martha E. Mather, for hours of conversations over coffee and dinner, Krista M. Harper, for inspirational
and helpful readings and so much more, Charles M. Schweik, for his technical acumen and never forgetting
to ask the really tough questions, Rodney R. Zwick, for making me feel like a colleague and showing me
new ways of thinking – who all contributed something very unique and different to this project, and whose
critical questioning of my ideas and methodology greatly improved this project and its usefulness. And,
last but certainly not least, to my chair, Robert M. Muth, whose willingness to take a chance on me and
support my unconventional ideas (within limits, of course!) helped me see this project to completion.
v i
ABSTRACT

MORE THAN ONE RIVER: LOCAL, PLACE-BASED KNOWLEDGE AND
THE POLITICAL ECOLOGY OF RESTORATION AND REMEDIATION
ALONG THE LOWER NEPONSET RIVER, MASSACHUSETTS

SEPTEMBER 2009

SIMONA LEE PERRY, B.S., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST

M.M.A., UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST

Directed by: Robert M. Muth

This research is an exploration of the local, place-based knowledge surrounding a degraded urban river, the
Lower Neponset River and Estuary in southern Boston Harbor, Massachusetts, and its environmental
restoration. Through a mixed-methods approach to sociological inquiry that included 18-months of
ethnographic interviews and participant observations, Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping,
archival document research, and critical environmental history, it explores the different ways local citizens
interpret the river as a place of historical importance, personal nostalgia, social and family networks,
neighborhood legacies, aesthetics, economic security, danger, psychological refuge, ecology, and political
power. Using an interpretive analysis of the narrative, visual, and spatial data related to those meanings, it
then explores how such different local, place-based interpretations can be used to inform the theory,
practice and politics of urban river restoration. The research shows that recognition of the socio-cultural
diversity in local citizen interpretations of the Lower Neponset River’s restoration is important for
environmental managers, planners, and local decision-makers to recognize alongside ecological and
economic development “best-practices” (e.g., holistic watershed management, anadromous fish re-
introduction, flow and function, ecosystem services, affordable housing quotas, “Smart” growth, etc.). The
research recommends that environmental managers, planners, and local politicians and decision-makers
give equal consideration to the socio-cultural, political, economic, and ecological factors surrounding urban
rivers, and the diversity of meanings that their “restoration” conjures, in order to make strides towards
ethical environmental restoration and management practices that are socially, as well as environmentally,
sustainable.
vi i
CONTENTS

Page

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS........................................................................................................................v

ABSTRACT...........................................................................................................................................vii

LIST OF TABLES.................................................................................................................................xii

LIST OF FIGURES...............................................................................................................................xiii

CHAPTER

I. INTRODUCTION TO THE RESEARCH PROBLEM........................................................................1

More than One River: Restoration of the Lower Neponset River.....................................................2

One River with Many Stories............................................................................................................8

II. EXPLORING THE POLITICAL ECOLOGY OF URBAN RIVER RESTORATION:
STORYLINES AND INTERPRETIVE ENVIRONMENTAL COMMUNITIES...........................10

The Practice of Ecological Restoration...........................................................................................10

Philosophical and Ethical Conceptualizations of Ecological Restoration.......................................11

The Social Construction of Nature..................................................................................................14

Critical De-Construction of the “Social Construction of Nature”.....................................18

The Political Ecology of River Restoration....................................................................................21

The Concept of Community............................................................................................................23

“Sense of Place”.............................................................................................................. 24

Storylines and Interpretive Environmental Communities: Expert versus
Local Knowledge............................................................................................................................25

III. METHODS......................................................................................................................................28

Social Science Methods of Inquiry and Analysis............................................................................28

Research Questions.........................................................................................................................30

Identifying Participants and Neponset River Restoration Themes: Preliminary Observations and
Interviews........................................................................................................................................31

vi ii
Page

Research Methods: Carrying Out the Research..............................................................................32

The Field Journal and Researcher Diary...........................................................................32
Participant Observations...................................................................................................32
Archival Data Collection: Local Newspapers and Historical Resources..........................35
Ethnographic Interviews...................................................................................................36
Selection of Participants...................................................................................................40
GIS: Cartographic Representation and Spatial Analysis..................................................44

Reliability and Trustworthiness of Data..........................................................................................46

IV. A CRITICAL ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY OF THE LOWER NEPONSET RIVER AND
ESTUARY........................................................................................................................................48

The Pleistocene Era and Early Human Inhabitants along the Neponset River................................49

Geologic History of the Neponset River Valley and Estuary...........................................49
Paleolithic Flora and Fauna..............................................................................................50
Humans In and Around the Paleolithic Neponset River Valley........................................51

American Indians of the Neponset River Valley.............................................................................51

The Massachuset People of the Neponset.........................................................................51
Early European Contact....................................................................................................55

English Settlement and Control of Massachusetts Bay...................................................................57

The Massachusetts Bay Colony: Dorchester and Boston.................................................58
English Control and Enclosure of Neponset Lands and Waters.......................................59

Transforming the “Meaning” of a River.........................................................................................60

Aliens and Natives: From Oysters to Fowl Meadow Grass..............................................62
Water for Fish, Water for Factories: Early Conflicts Over River Resources....................64
Engine of Progress: Mother Brook, Railroads, and the “Rage for Factories”.................. 70
Fishways Revisited...........................................................................................................73
Pollution............................................................................................................................75
Public Health and Safety...................................................................................................76
Re-Creation and the Metropolitan Park System...............................................................77

Technological and Social Changes and Interpretations of the Neponset River...............................81

Floods, Hurricanes, and the Engineering of the River......................................................82

Connecting Past and Present Interpretations of the Lower Neponset River....................................84

V. HISTORY OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE EFFORTS TO RESTORE THE LOWER NEPONSET
RIVER..............................................................................................................................................86

Massachusetts Watershed Initiative (MWI) and the Neponset River Pilot Project.........................87

Ecosystem, Multi-Stakeholder Approach to Watershed Protection and Management.....87
State and Local MWI and Neponset Project Implementation...........................................88
ix