To the editor:

A recent and notably positive development in our community has been the creation of a meadow within the walls of our historic Town Pound (a 19th Century corral for keeping wayward agricultural livestock). This repurposed historic site has the potential to serve as an eco-education lab as well as a pollinator garden and habitat for our native flora and fauna.  A goal with public benefit.

 At the recent September 2022 CPC meeting, committee members approved a motion to transfer agency oversight from the Select Board to the Department of Parks & Recreation. This is good news. After years of inaction, this transfer will be presented at a Town Meeting next spring. Adding the Town Pound to the Parks’ portfolio assures further protection even beyond the preservation safeguards it currently enjoys as part of the Russells Mills Village Local Historic District. Across Massachusetts, parklands are protected by the state legislature and are meant to remain in the public trust in perpetuity–eliminating any potential threats, namely, deaccession. 

Since 2019, concerned citizens and village constituents have been advocates for a meadow in the Town Pound, and our recent May 21, 2022 letter to the Select Board requesting a MOU between the town and meadow volunteers is a further reminder of our ongoing interest in maintaining this area as a bio-diverse habitat. It is a concept so solid that the Dartmouth Historical Commission (DHC) endorsed it as an appropriate preservation treatment. Following DHC’s guidance, the Community Preservation Committee Chairperson tasked the Director of Parks & Recreation to work with a meadow-volunteer to initiate a MOU, based on the North Dartmouth Dog Park MOU drafted for its volunteers.

Yet despite the community’s vociferous support, it remains an open question as to whether agency leadership will honor our request.

Villagers and concerned citizens have done a lot of work since 2019. Yet after many years of volunteer service and our campaign to educate town officials and the public, it was dispiriting to hear CPC members mischaracterize the meadow as inaccessible, “hideous,” and full of “weeds” that could destabilize the massive stone walls (not bloody likely!). Yet, meadows are increasingly part of new eco-sustainable protocols. The National Park Service cultivates meadows at our venerated Civil War battlefield sites – hard to imagine telling those dedicated NPS staffers that their efforts are “hideous” or that those sacred spaces are full of “weeds.”

When one sees swaying wildflowers like Wild Evening Primrose (Oenethras biennas)–nearly 8 feet high!–and grasses poking their heads above the wall of the pound one might initially think the space is unkempt. Yet for three seasons, volunteers have been managing it–eliminating invasives, recording the plant inventory, and routinely haying it. At summer’s end, Goldfinch perch on the towering stalks to gobble up the seeds before the meadow is cut back for the winter. 

With our resident-volunteers’ stewardship, the Pound Meadow will thrive and our community will reap the benefits, yet we need the collaborative support of our Department of Parks and Recreation and its Parks Board to achieve this goal. A goal with public benefit.

Jamie O’Day, ASLA Meadowkeeper ex offio, Historical Landscape Architect,

Dartmouth

Joney Swift, Educator, Meadowkeeper ex officio, DNRT Board Member,                                                                              

Dartmouth