Blue Gills for the Merrimack River
ACADEMIC | PLANNING
Gioia Connell, Aary Lee, Katie Mixter, Maria Pozimski, Misha Semenov
2017
The city of Lowell, Massachusetts represents a critical ecological, cultural, and historical node in New England, situated at the confluence of the smaller Concord River with the mighty Merrimack, which flows for 117-miles through a watershed that is home to over two million people. The city is also within Boston’s 35-mile commuter shed, giving it a quick connection to a cosmopolitan hub of nearly five million. Carved by arteries of canals that once carried logs, then powered mills, and now produce a large fraction of the city’s power, Lowell is a place whose physicality is defined by water and the engineering innovation of its people.
Lowell’s history and present are a cause for celebration, but also reflect challenges faced by many post-industrial New England towns. Economic flight has created vacant and blighted lands. While the problem of industrial pollution has been largely addressed in the city’s waters, runoff from impermeable surfaces and combined sewer overflows (CSOs) remains a persistent issue for the health of the city’s canals and the Merrimack as a whole. Extensive damming both downstream and upstream of the city have caused further detriment to the river ecosystem. The design opportunities both regionally and within Lowell are grounded in the rich history that these convergences create.
Our proposal triangulates between the biodynamics of the Merrimack River, the modern-day uses and interactions of the citizens of Lowell with the canals, and the future that Lowell envisions for itself. Grounded in the Sustainability 2025 Plan that Lowell published in 2011 after an intensive stakeholder engagement process, we seek to foster Lowell as a new kind of pioneering testing ground for constructed hydrological interventions that ameliorate water quality, improve river ecology, and engage citizens and educational institutions – all while serving as a model for implementation at the regional scale.
