DOWNSTREAM Page Number 18 Wachusett Forestry The ‘Hole’ Story

Traveling around central Massachusetts, one will inevitably notice some timber harvesting operations on DCR land. People often ask, “Why are they cutting down trees?” Frequently, the next question is, “Why are they cutting those trees?” The following explains how DCR foresters choose where to harvest trees in the Wachusett Reservoir watershed. Forest Management Overview The Division of Water Supply Protection’s Land Management Plans provide detailed explanations and rationales for managing the forests in each of the four watersheds – Quabbin Reservoir, Ware River, Wachusett Reservoir, and Sudbury Reservoir – that comprise the source for the DCR/MWRA drinking water supply system. This article explores the techniques used to ensure that DCR is following the Wachusett Reservoir Watershed Land Management Plan (WLMP; the complete text of all four plans are available online at www.mass. gov/dcr/waterSupply/watershed/dwmplans.htm. See page 3 for a separate story on the Quabbin Land Management Plan.) The WLMP contains specific forest management goals: Over the next 30 years, one-third, or 4,000 acres of managed forest at Wachusett will be converted to a new age-class. For this age class to be evenly distributed throughout [DCR] land and evenly spaced through time, about 130 acres must be regenerated each year. Therefore, approximately 400 acres will be treated annually (one third of which is regenerated). NUMBER 18 Fall 2007 The 130 acres to be regenerated per year is about 1% of the managed Photo by; Thom Kyker-Snowman DCR/DWSP Staff WACHUSETT FORESTRY - SEE PAGE 4

In This Issue:

As summer fades and the trees change Wachusett Forestry 1 over to festive fall colors, it’s time to take Cataloging the status of our forests a moment to appreciate their life cycle Fishing Line Follow-up 2 and how it affects the surrounding A successful season of fishing line recycling environment. Poets have seen trees as Quabbin Land Management Plan 3 something of permanence, but as a tree A new 10-year plan takes root, grows to maturity and is Reservoir Watch 3 Department of Conservation replaced by another, it interacts with its Statistical reservoir data and Recreation surroundings in subtle ways, such as the Tree Cookies 7 Division of Water Supply cooling shade or uptake and release of A Kids Corner tree activity Protection moisture. DCR foresters very closely Early Wachusett Tree Nurseries 8 www.mass.gov/dcr/ observe and understand this process. The first trees of the Wachusett Reservoir waterSupply.htm DOWNSTREAM Page2 Fall 2007

Fishing Line Follow-Up First Season Success for Fishing Line Recycling at the Wachusett Reservoir

What are the goals of the Fishing Line Thank You Recycling Program? for taking part in fishing ƒ To raise awareness of the danger that discarded fishing line poses line recycling! to wildlife. ƒ To enable fishermen to dispose of line easily and safely. ƒ To reduce the loss of wildlife due to entanglement. ƒ To responsibly recycle fishing Photos, DCR/DWSP line. ƒ To reduce line at landfills, where it can blow away threatening additional wildlife. ƒ To keep the reservoir water clean.

What species are affected by improperly disposed fishing line? In the previous issue of J Taylor ƒ Birds, especially diving birds such Downstream, new efforts were announced However, carelessly discarded fishing line as loons, mergansers, and to eliminate discarded fishing line along was becoming an increasingly serious cormorants. Ducks and geese the shores of the Wachusett Reservoir. problem – wildlife were becoming may become entangled in line This update answers several questions entangled, usually with fatal results. The along the shore. Balls of fishing about the Fishing Line Recycling Program. Fishing Line Recycling Program was line have been retrieved from started at the beginning of the 2007 eagle and osprey nests. The Wachusett Reservoir is very popular fishing season to help keep the reservoir ƒ Muskrats, otters and beavers may with local fishermen, most of whom are pristine and to stop the needless loss of become entangled in line as they good stewards of the environment. wildlife. dive for food. Any mammal that utilizes the shoreline may also be Please Recycle Your affected. Old Fishing Line! ƒ Turtles can also become entangled by fishing line. To date, 10 fishing line recycling canisters have been set out at various What happens to animals that become locations around the Wachusett trapped by fishing line? Reservoir. The recycling canister Fishing line is unlike anything found in shown at left has been located near nature – it is fine, very strong and remains the Old Stone Church at the a threat for years. When an otherwise Wachusett Reservoir for this past healthy animal is snared by line, capture summer’s fishing season. The fishing by a predator may be preferable to what line recycling program reports a very would otherwise be inevitable suffering. successful first season, estimated to have collected nearly 33,000 feet Drowning may result if the animalThese is (almost 6 miles!) of line at the entangled under water and can notimages reach Wachusett Reservoir. Canisters have the water’s surface. Loons and divingshow the also been placed at the 3 Quabbin birds may still be able to swim andold get Scar air, Reservoir fishing areas with excellent but they become increasingly wearyHill Road as results. Next spring, more canisters they struggle with this burden, eventuallybridge. are expected to be installed at both becoming so weak that they succumbSide-scan to reservoirs in anticipation of even starvation, exposure to the elements, or greater success as well as safer, predation. Death as a result of healthier wildlife. entanglement in fishing line is usually a slow, painful process. - Paula Packard -DCR/DWSP Aquatic Biologist Photo; J Taylor. FISHING LINE - SEE PAGE 6 DOWNSTREAM Page3 Number 18

The Quabbin Land Management Plan Update

The plan continues DCR’s on-going efforts to establish an uneven aged forest. The mix of forest types and ages across the watershed at any given time produces a predictable volume of water delivered to the reservoir, while the inherent diversity in species composition provides the The Quabbin Reservoir on a quiet fall morning. Photo: DCR/DWSP Staff watershed forest with a level of redundancy in maintaining itself that The Land Management Plan for the Protection, Forest Management, Wildlife rivals the most responsibly engineered Quabbin Reservoir watershed has been Management, Management and Protection water treatment plant. The diverse updated by the Division of Water Supply of Biodiversity, and Cultural Resources structure in the living green filter across Protection, Office of Watershed Protection. The plan builds on the watershed, like diversity in an Management. The 2007-2017 Quabbin advancements in science and management investment portfolio, yields more Land Management Plan sets out techniques, the agency’s own experience consistent performance through the principles, goals, and objectives for over six decades of managing the vagaries of climate fluctuations, wind, managing DCR owned land in the Quabbin watershed and its resources, and snow, ice, rainfall intensity, and damaging Reservoir watershed, with the express accumulated input from advisory groups native and alien pests than a forest (or an purpose of protecting the public water and the concerned public. It is designed artificial filter) built to a single design. The supply for the next ten years. The plan as an adaptive plan, utilizing annual range in structural and species provides principles from the current state reviews to build immediately on new composition across the forested of the science of watershed and natural information and changes in the science watershed represents built-in multiple resources management. It also states that supports management decisions, and barriers, providing a forest biofilter that agency goals, and specific objectives for revising objectives, as necessary, within functions 24 hours a day on free solar the ten year time frame of the plan. accomplishing these in the areas of Land QUABBIN PLAN - SEE PAGE 6

Reservoir Watch - What’s Happening on the Water Recently you may have noticed that the water level at the Reservoir Levels and 6-month Precipitation Wachusett Reservoir is low. This is due to work being Reservoir Quabbin Wachusett performed on the Wachusett Minimum* 526.60’ 387.71’ Dam spillway. Percent Full 93.7% 85.3% This project includes Date 8/31/07 8/17/07 disassembly of the old Maximum* 530.79’ 394.57’ manually operated wooden Percent Full 101.6% 99.1% stop log system used to DCR/DWSP Quabbin Visitors Center Date 4/18/07 4/19/07 regulate the water level and Precipitation 22.4” 10.9” lowering of the spillway crest by two North Dike structural improve- (Seasonal Avg. = 23.9”) feet. New hydraulically-operated steel ments are also part of this crest gates will be installed to control project, where rock from the *Reservoir Depth in Feet Above Mean Sea Level reservoir water level. The downstream new auxiliary channel will be 2007 System-wide 6-Month Water Usage channel (sometimes called the “waste placed behind about 800 feet of (Million Gallons Per Day) weir” because at one time water the Dike for added structural 300.00 through the spillway was considered stability. 264.11 248.66 “wasted”) will be expanded with a new 250.00 240.55 channel around the historic arch 218.70 The crest gates are scheduled 198.82 192.55 railroad bridge, which will remain as a to be installed and tested by 200.00 public access point. December 2007. The auxiliary 150.00 The combination of new crest gates and discharge channel is open but auxiliary discharge channel will allow will see structural and cosmetic 100.00 work for several more months the reservoir to safely pass the 50.00 Probable Maximum Flood, further and Dike stabilization work is currently underway. protecting the integrity of the main dam. 0.00 Data and text provided by MWRA March April May June July August DOWNSTREAM Page4 Fall 2007

7 Calves

19 Bulls

These images show a working unit in the Wachusett Reservoir 17 Cows Watershed. A forest planting map from the early 1900s is shown above.

At right is a timber type map drawn by DCR foresters in the mid-1980s.

The image at top right shows an aerial photo of the same location taken in 2005, overlaid with digital forestry information. (Tip-up photo goes here) WACHUSETT FORESTRY - FROM PAGE 4 forest at Wachusett. This is well within then it is important to know the current Above: A tip-up mound, of what was the estimated rate that the forests of age distribution. Most managed forests are mapped to some extent into “stands,” once a white pine blown down in the southern New England would naturally hurricane of 1938. Evidence of the regenerate due to small-scale distur- areas of similar species and sizes. original tree can be seen on the right bances. Significant scientific evidence Mapping of the Wachusett forests began as a birch tree has grown in the suggests that the Wachusett watershed in the early 1980s and continues as new exposed soil. forest is well adapted to disturbance that lands are purchased. The categories used occurs at this rate, and that biodiversity for mapping timber are traditionally based to match the high-resolution orthophotos and over-all ecological integrity is best on tree species, stem density, and average provided by MassGIS, as well as maintained by working within this natural diameter and height; these characteristics, integrating all newly purchased lands to the data library. This transformation to an pattern. however, only loosely approximate age. This system, though useful, lacked the all-digital mapping process set the stage A “working unit” is a block of land treated precision required to implement the for adding the final piece to the as a single timber sale area; there are over WLMP. A “year of origin” was needed for management puzzle, stand age. 300 working units averaging about 50 every mapped stand, which meant Over 4.5 million trees were planted on acres each. To provide resilience to estimating ages for the standing trees, lands around the Wachusett Reservoir catastrophic wind events as well as varied unless previously recorded information from 1902 - 1945, either to reforest old habitats for the mix of plant and animal could be referenced. fields or areas damaged from storms and species that depend on these forests, fires, or to add pines to areas growing DCR strives for working units to contain a Maps: From Paper to Computer only hardwoods. Foresters kept records mosaic of at least three age classes. A DCR began shifting its Wachusett of those plantings and made careful maps diverse mix of species well-suited to the forestry mapping from paper to GIS that are kept in the Wachusett Forestry soils on which they are growing is an (Geographic Information Systems – see office. These maps were used as a first additional goal for the regenerated forests, Downstream #16) about seven years ago, attempt at identifying the trees’ age, but which will also limit DCR’s need to re- after realizing the advantages of many of these plantations had been enter a working unit to every 25-35 years computer-based information management. harvested, blown over, or failed in some in order to release another age class. Wachusett Section Forestry staff slowly built all the data layers that would be used other way. The timber stand mapping How Old? daily: property lines, stone walls, roads, often accounted for these changes, but It’s easy to conclude that if forest trails, and cover types. During this unfortunately there was no coding for management is based on age structure, arduous process, old maps were corrected age. Major storm events like the hurricane of 1938 and the tornadoes of 1989 are well- DOWNSTREAM Page5 Number 18

Working Unit Characteristics This sequence at left Age Category Forest Acres shows the tree coring process with 0-20 years 4.6 the extracted core 21-40 years 3.6 shown below. 41-60 years 0.0 61-80 years 15.0 The table at right 81-100 years 1.1 shows the charted >100 years 11.8 results the forester Manageable found in the working Forested Acres 35.9 unit shown on maps Unmanageable on the facing page. Forested and Non-Forested Acres 8.2 Total Unit Acres = 44.1

This White Pine core shows distinct growth rings revealing the trees age. Lighter areas denote spring growth documented; the stand maps were and darker areas fall/winter growth. updated on paper and later in GIS. Photos: Greg Buzzell DCR/DWSP Forester larger than last year’s sheath). only a tiny fraction of all trees were Additional data, however, would need to sampled by coring, and those trees are be collected for the areas beyond these To count the rings on a standing tree, the still very much alive. While this process accounted stands. Foresters extracted a core of wood by is not perfect, it is the best available boring through from the bark to the pith practice, especially considering that That Tree’s Older Than You Are (center) with a tool called an increment sampling will never have to be repeated DCR Foresters took carefully constructed borer. The 3/16" diameter cylinder of on the same acreage. photographic maps into the woods, wood was carefully pulled out, leaving a visiting each stand in the Wachusett small hole in the tree, and the rings are Summing Up – Every Acre Counts Reservoir watershed. Previously counted. Some species, like oaks, ash, With the data collection complete, the unknown hurricane evidence would often and pine, are easily read in the field since analysis of stand age began. All of the be found; the stand could thus be they have very distinct annual rings. land polygons were further segmented recorded as having originated in 1938. Birch, maple, and aspen cores usually using GIS software based on intersecting Another way to determine a tree’s age was need to be brought back to the office for a layers of sub-basins, working units, soil by examining a stump from a recently staining process that enhances ring types, cover types and ages, and felled tree and counting the rings back to visibility. Occasionally, cores will need to manageability. (Unmanageable lands are: the center. Barring either of these be read under a dissecting microscope if administrative or non-forested, including opportunities, the Foresters would choose the rings are extremely thin. buildings, roads, fields, and shorelines; a few representative trees in each stand, wetlands; very steeply sloped hillsides; for coring. An average age for the stand was then lands cut off by wetlands or steep slopes; chosen based on the samples. The year and areas designated for no management. Most children learn in school that you that stand originated was entered into the Lands can change status given count tree rings to age a tree. The GIS database. This database currently technological improvements or improved combination of genetics, environment, contains over 4,800 forested polygons, access through new land acquisition. and growth variations change the type of totaling over 14,600 acres, with years of Currently, 4,500 acres are open water/ wood cells grown within one growing origin ranging from 1829 to 2007. season. A ringed appearance results from reservoir, and 3,700 acres are accumulated annual layers of this variable The coring process does leave holes in unmanageable). The software calculated growth, when looked at in cross-section the trees. Wachusett foresters expect the acreage for each new area it created. (the wood of course is grown as a holes to heal over, but research shows A program was developed to help DCR continuous sheath over the whole tree, that a fair portion of them will lead to some visualize the results of these intersections. just under the bark, just over and slightly decay through fungal invasion. However, WACHUSETT FORESTRY - SEE PAGE 6 DOWNSTREAM Page6 Fall 2007

FISHING LINE - FROM PAGE 2 QUABBIN PLAN - FROM PAGE 3 WACHUSETT FORESTRY - FROM PAGE 5 What is DCR doing at Wachusett energy. Forested watersheds supply this This analysis helps achieve the forest Reservoir to make it easier to recycle unparalleled drinking water protection management goal of distributing age fishing line? while simultaneously maintaining classes equally throughout time as well as ƒ Ten clearly labeled PVC canisters undeveloped open space and its space. Using the database, the acreages were installed at popular fishing associated values, protection for both rare can be organized in different ways - for a areas around the reservoir to and common species and their habitats, working unit, or a sub-basin, or for the make recycling easy and and renewable, sustainable wood whole watershed. production that supports rural economies convenient. So Why Those Trees? and reduces dependence on long-distance ƒ Letters explaining the program To prioritize forest management activities, transportation of natural resources. were sent to all local bait shops, the sub-basins that have the most rod & gun clubs, and fishing The 2007-2017 Quabbin Land imbalanced age distribution, especially equipment supply stores. Management Plan was developed by those with very little acreage in the ƒ Posters to raise general DCR personnel over a two year time frame, youngest age classes, are identified first. awareness and to describe details kicking-off with a public meeting in 2005, Looking more closely, working units are about this program were placed and culminating with the publication of a then chosen based on the degree to which at many locations around the draft in June 2007 and a public hearing in young age classes are lacking. After the reservoir. July 2007. DCR worked with the Quabbin harvesting proposal has gone through an ƒ A display box was placed at the Watershed Advisory Council, the Quabbin internal review process, it’s time to start main entrance to DCR Regional Science and Technical Advisory laying out the harvest. Headquarters building in West Committee, professional foresters, and the Every tree needs water and sunlight in Boylston. general public in devising the goals, order to grow. Different species have objectives, and management strategies Is it working? different needs, and those needs can laid out in the plan. DCR Commissioner Yes! DCR staff are finding significantly change over time. Oaks and pine, the Rick Sullivan officially adopted the 2007- less fishing line along the shore, and the preferred species, germinate well under 2017 Quabbin Land Management Plan problem appears to be getting better. partial light but require full light to on September 17, 2007. The complete plan Every canister is well utilized and packed continue to grow to maturity. The is available on-line at www.mass.gov/dcr/ with recyclable fishing line that will never strategy when entering a working unit is waterSupply/watershed/quablmp.htm. pose a threat to wildlife. With the success to first determine which areas have Copies are also available at all libraries in of the Fishing Line Recycling Program at enough seedlings and saplings present to the Quabbin watershed as well as the the Wachusett Reservoir, the DCR has be released with patch cuts of overstory Quabbin Visitor Center. For more expanded these efforts to the fishing areas removal. These patches (sometimes information on the 2007-2017 Quabbin at the Quabbin Reservoir. DCR, as well as referred to as “holes”) range from ¼ to 2 Land Management Plan, please contact our wild friends, would like to thank acres in size and are targeted to amount to Thom Kyker-Snowman at everyone who has taken part in this a third of the total unit area. The patches [email protected] or 413- worthwhile program. are mapped and added to the GIS 323-6921 x551. database, and the year of origin is set to - Paula Packard - DCR/DWSP Aquatic Biologist - Joel Zimmerman - DCR/DWSP Planner the date the trees get cut. Between the Tree Planting at Wachusett - from back page patches, partial cutting is often used to help establish new regeneration or to improve the condition of the remaining A crew plants Sugar Maples overstory. and White The original question has been answered: Pines in the trees are cut to improve the forest, either spring of 1903. by cycling patches of old forest back to young forest or by thinning out stands to grow better trees. As for the follow-up question, DCR knows exactly where to go because of the Wachusett Section Foresters today make management management strategies that provide Foresters’ efforts to gather, map and decisions designed to leave healthy, ongoing resilience to disease, storm analyze all the necessary information. All diverse, and productive forests for the events, and the loss of wildlife habitat and of this data will be catalogued, with the future, when forester managers yet species diversity. This all started at intent of providing future foresters with a unborn will continue the work The future Wachusett more than a century ago with complete and easy-to-use record of the of our forests, and the pristine water the planting of the first seedling. history of the Wachusett forest. supplies they protect, depend on - Jim French - DCR/DWSP Land Acquisition Coordinator - Brian Keevan - DCR/DWSP Forester DOWNSTREAM Page7 Number 18

Kids Corner For More Information About Trees... our ersonal Check out these books: Y P Tree Cookie Stepping Back to Look Forward. Foster, Charles H. W., editor (1998) Harvard Forest. (A Massachusetts forest history) The rings found on a slice of tree trunk - or tree cookie - Forest Stand Dynamics. tell how old the tree is, as Oliver, Chadwick D. and Larson, well as other clues about the Bruce C. (1996). tree’s life. These rings John Wiley & Sons. appear as a light and dark (Very technical, but informative) alternating pattern. One dark and one light pair of rings Stone by Stone. represent a year of growth. Thorson, Robert M. (2002) The light color shows the Walker & Company. spring growth when sap flows (An interesting history of the New quickly, while the dark color England Landscape) is the later season growth.

Other clues about the tree’s And for kids... life can also be found in the tree cookie, or cross section, of the tree. Rings are wider during a good growth The Big Tree. year and narrower if there was a drought, if there aren’t many nutrients available Hiscock, Bruce (1991) or if there was a lot of competition with other trees. Insect attacks, fire damage Atheneum Books. and other injuries and weather conditions also show up on a tree cookie and tell (Follows the life and times of a interesting facts about events in the tree’s lifetime. Sugar Maple) Outside and Inside Trees. Markle, Sandra. (1993) Here’s how to making your own personal Tree Cookie! Simon & Shuster. (How a tree lives and grows) Materials: Tree cookie, paper plate, crayons or pencil

Procedure: Examine a tree cookie and count the rings to find out the age of the tree. Look closely at the tree cookie to see if there are any marks that might show an interesting event in the tree’s life. Branch growth, insect damage, a fire And Another Thing... ring around the tree or an injury to the tree from a person, an animal or another by J. Taylor tree will sometimes show up in a tree cookie.

Take the paper plate and draw a tree cookie showing your own life. The outside edge will be the bark.

Start on the center with a dot indicating the year you were born. Draw a ring around it to show your first year. The next ring you draw will be your second year. Keep going so there will be a ring for each year of your life.

Now you can go back and put some marks or notes on your tree cookie to show events in your life. Was there a year when you remember scraping your knee or breaking a bone? You could put a little mark on that year. What year was your brother or sister born? You could put a mark or note on that year.

Continue working on your own tree cookie to have it show things that are special to you in your life. “Yuck! This wood in the middle tastes kind of old!” - Jim Lafley - DCR/DWSP Wachusett Education Coordinator DOWNSTREAM Page8 Fall 2007

Early Tree Nurseries of the Wachusett Reservoir More than 4.5 million trees were propagated, nurtured, collected, and planted on the newly acquired lands surrounding the Wachusett Reservoir between 1898 and the outbreak of World War II. Croplands, meadows, wetlands, woodlots, and pastures taken by the Metropolitan Waterworks Commission to serve as buffer lands for water supply purposes would come to support a vibrant maturing forest in our time. It was clearly understood back then, and even centuries before, that the

These photographs, taken in 1903, show tree planting crews tending saplings at the West Boylston Nursery (below) and the planting of saplings on the banks of what was to become the Wachusett Reservoir (right). Photos: DCR/DWSP Quabbin Visitors Center

purest water is the product of a forested landscape maintained with minimal disturbance. Many hard lessons have been learned throughout European and Asian history of the loss of essential potable water sources due to poor land use practices that have left landscapes denuded, eroded, and impoverished – conditions which doom sustainable water yields. Forestry is a multi-generational endeavor – with the fruit of efforts, by such men as these, not being realized until long after their-Mass. work Archives is Photosdone. TREE PLANTING - SEE PAGE 6

DOWNSTREAM Department of Conservation & Recreation Division of Water Supply Protection Office of Watershed Management 180 Beaman Street West Boylston, MA 01583

(508) 835-4816 ex.363

Downstream is produced twice a year by the Massa- chusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, Division of Water Supply Protection. It includes ar- ticles of interest to residents of the watershed sys- tem communities. Our goal is to inform the public about watershed protection issues and activities, pro- vide a conduit for public input, and promote environ- mentally responsible land management practices.

Governor: Deval L. Patrick

Lt. Governor: Timothy P. Murray

EOEEA Secretary: Ian A. Bowles

DCR Commissioner: Richard K. Sullivan Jr.

DWSP Director: Jonathan L. Yeo

Downstream Editor: James E. Taylor