
The Northampton Conservation Commission will hold an online hearing on August 29 at 5:45pm to review the Sovereign Builders proposal for View Avenue. Instructions for attending will be posted to the city calendar by the end of the day on August 27.
The Northampton Conservation Commission will hold an online hearing on August 29 at 5:45pm to review the Sovereign Builders proposal for View Avenue. Instructions for attending will be posted to the city calendar by the end of the day on August 27.
To compensate for development in and around wetlands, developers are sometimes encouraged or required to create new ones. GOOD reports, however, that these restored wetlands are inferior: …ecologists have found that restored wetlands are not as ecologically valuable as the originals—a new analysis of 621 wetland sites shows that, on average, restored wetlands regained only […]
Here is a YouTube video of “An Illustrated Talk on The Natural History of Our Meadows”, a presentation by naturalist Laurie L. Sanders, author of Rediscovering Northampton: The Natural History of City-Owned Conservation Areas. This presentation was part of the 11/16/11 annual meeting of the Meadow City Conservancy Coalition. This recording was made by Adam […]
Yesterday’s Springfield Republican reports on work by geologists at the University of Massachusetts: The study was authored by David F. Boutt, a hydrogeologist and assistant professor, and Kaitlyn M. Weider, a graduate student in geology… “More precipitation is falling as rain and less as snow with average annual precipitation displaying a gradual increase of 5 […]
Here is a complete YouTube video of the 4/14/11 meeting of Northampton’s Conservation Commission. This video is 1 hour 47 minutes long and was recorded by Adam Cohen. Highlights: 0:51:45-1:01:32 Members of the commission craft a letter to the Gazette that responds to a March 17 guest column by Alexandra Dawson. She had written: The […]
In the March 17 Gazette, Alexandra Dawson cautioned against well-intentioned efforts to “improve” wetlands, as opposed to giving them adequate buffer zones and leaving them undisturbed. An opinion piece by Hugh Raffles in the April 2 New York Times underscores this sentiment, cautioning against indiscriminate attempts to eradicate non-native species: Mother Nature’s Melting Pot …just […]
Alexandra Dawson has an excellent column in today’s Gazette. Here is an excerpt: …in the long run, nearby development [to wetlands] can result in grass clippings, raked leaves and dog droppings – or worse – getting pushed over the line. And then the wetland loses a lot of its resource value.The Northampton City Council some […]
The Ward 3 Neighborhood Association and Smith College have just released the results of an informal survey regarding open space and recreation. Here are the top five responses to Question 7 (among the 94 respondents who answered the question correctly): If you could tell the City three things that we needed in Ward 3 that would make […]
Northampton’s Office of Planning and Development announces today: The second public forum on the draft Northampton Open Space, Recreation, & Multi-Use Trail Plan: 2011-2017 will be held this coming Thursday, September 23rd, at 7:00 PM in the basement of the Unitarian Church next to City Hall. The first public forum was held on Tuesday [see video]. […]
Wayne Feiden, Director of Northampton’s Office of Planning and Development, presented highlights from a draft of the 2011-2017 Open Space, Recreation & Multi-Use Trail Plan (PDF, 237 pages, 5MB) to the public at Northampton High School’s Little Theater last night. Here is a complete blip.tv video of the presentation and discussion (1 hour 20 minutes). The recording was […]