Bolton, Harvard, and Devens: Apple Country Natural Climate Solutions

FY21 MVP Action Grant led by the Town of Bolton: This project completed an ecological climate assessment for three communities along the outer-495 corridor – all three have significant natural land resources that continue to experience development pressures. Comprehensive ecological planning focused on Nature-based Solutions for climate resilience, including a soil health assessment (putting the State Healthy Soils Action Plan to work on a downscaled regional approach), literature research regarding wetlands analysis, and recommendations for policy updates and best management practices.

Project Details

Project Title

Apple Country Natural Climate Solutions

Municipality

Bolton, Devens, and Harvard

MVP Region

Central

Award Year

FY2021

Grant Award

$250,000

Project Length

One Year

Community Overview

Apple Country is located in Worcester County, Massachusetts. Its landscape is characterized by extensive forests and wetlands, productive farmland, and active floodplains laced by roads and low-to-medium density development. The working and natural lands of Bolton, Harvard, and Devens play an essential role in the ecological functioning, carbon functioning, and provision of, and need for, community and ecological climate resiliency of the wider region.

• Bolton (population 5,842)
  • Bolton is characterized by its approximate12,800 acres, over 92% is zoned “Residential” and roughly 41.35% of the total is under watershed or wetlands protection, leaving a small amount of land zoned for commercial and industrial activity. This allocation is as intended, reflects past and currently expressed resident sentiment that Bolton does not actively seek commercial development or reduce lot size to increase density and concomitant tax base. Bolton’s low residential density is due in part to the absence of distributed water and sewer infrastructure, and the specific minimum lot size. Bolton is home to many small-scale owner-operated farms and commercial Farms; Bolton Spring Farm, Bolton Orchards, Schartner Farm and Nicewicz Farm. Produce is distributed throughout various farmers markets but mostly depend on pick your own practices which sell the produce while drawing individuals into the Bolton community for a period of time. These orchards produce a broad variety of apples and peaches, with adjunct farm operations producing grapes, pumpkins, feed corn and a rich spread of vegetable crops. Several farm stores, markets, and self-serve stands add much more to the local economy than just sales revenues, as residents can often “eat local” and sustain Bolton’s viability and health in multiple ways without the need for a trip out of town. Residential neighborhoods are interspersed in and in close proximity to the Town’s Forest and wetland areas, providing a wonderful natural setting for residents but representing major challenges during extreme weather events due to downed power lines, local flooding, and other climate-related risks.
• Devens (550 residents, 6,000 business, plus prison population)
  • Devens is a 4,400 acre former military base strategically located near the juncture of a north-south and east-west rail line and contains a portion of the US Fish and Wildlife Service Oxbow National Wildlife Refuge area. This, coupled with the unique geology of the Devens area with its steep eskers, large sand and gravel deposits, as well as extensive riverine and wetland systems, make Devens an important part of the natural and human history of this region. Devens redevelopment has focused on the thoughtful and careful redevelopment of the base for the purpose of promoting economic development, social welfare, and environmental protection in the immediate and surrounding areas. Since the Military turned the land over to the state in 1996, over 1,400 acres (32%) of land in Devens has been permanently protected for its natural resource value – helping to preserve a larger system of important ecological resources within Apple Country, including over 13 miles of trails that connect to Ayer Harvard, and Shirley. Devens redevelopment built off of the existing military 
    infrastructure and is now a fully serviced community with public water and sewer serving all businesses and residents in Devens. The Devens Enterprise Commission (DEC) who oversees the redevelopment efforts, along with MassDevelopment, has incorporated a 
    number of strategies to achieve a more integrated and sustainable approach to redevelopment of Devens, including low-impact development requirements, green building incentives, and ecological industrial development practices (businesses working together to maximize efficiencies and shared resources, to minimize their carbon footprints). These efforts are aimed at ensuring Devens redevelops with nature, not in place of it.
• Harvard (population 6,620)
  • The Town of Harvard is characterized by a mosaic of orchards, rolling hills, and New England charm. Historically pastoral and agricultural. Harvard is still a largely agricultural town although it has slowly evolved into an exurban bedroom community with excellent public schools. The agricultural industry is Harvard’s largest economic sector with several remaining large commercial orchards and a number of smaller farms that sell produce, honey, and a variety of other specialty products. There are also several horse farms and farms practicing other forms of animal husbandry. In Harvard, a significant portion of the Nashua River watershed is protected by the Oxbow National Wildlife Refuge. Harvard’s farms and orchards, together with several large tracts of land in forest management, local conservation holdings and property owned by state and federal agencies, mean that open space constitutes over 40% of the town. Harvard ranks in the upper third of Massachusetts municipalities for total land area. Its population density of 227 persons per square mile makes Harvard similar to a number of towns along and west of the Connecticut River Valley, yet in built character, it differs from them in significant ways.

Project Description and Goals

• Where was the project located?
  • The project was located primarily throughout the three partner communities of Harvard, Bolton and Devens. 
• What climate change impacts did the project address? 
  • Flooding, urban heat island effect, drought, extreme weather events, and loss of ecosystem carbon and capacity for future carbon accumulation.
• What were the specific goals and tasks of the project? 
  • Expand communities’ capacity to 1) protect, 2) restore, and 3) enhance: A. ecological climate resilience (including biodiversity); and B. ecosystem services (including carbon sequestration and long-term storage) using Nature-based Solutions.
  • Develop and provide durable educational materials and opportunities for community members, leaders and organizations.
  • Provide a replicable model for community-driven assessment of natural resources values and co-benefits, particularly ecosystem carbon sequestration and long-term storage and support for biodiversity. This model relies on a robust community engagement and outreach process that integrates outreach to, and inclusion of, under-represented groups such as Environmental Justice and Climate Vulnerable groups.
  • Identify and prioritize site-specific nature-based resiliency and carbon solutions.
  • Provide preliminary scopes and costs for many of these NBS.
  • Provide recommendations and guidance for modification of regulations and for best management practices and provide extensive mapping.
• Did your project meet the goals:
  • Yes, throughout our project our team continuously looked for ways to reach out and incorporate input from EJ communities and Climate Vulnerable Populations. The community engagement and public involvement was ongoing and went slightly beyond the scope to include interviews from varying community members in the final report. This was a regional application and therefore not only provided benefits to those three communities but beyond into the greater community through avenues of UNACC, Massachusetts Association of Conservation Commissions (MACC), New England Forestry Foundation (NEFF), and other supporting community members. This project provided site assessments and a memorandum of project scopes on implementing Nature-based Solutions within these visited areas or similar.

Results and Deliverables

• Describe, and quantify (where possible) project results (e.g. square footage of habitat restored or created, increase in tree canopy coverage, etc.).  Report out on the metrics outlined in your application. 
  • The Project was led and coordinated by three communities and a team of consultants. The project consisted of 44 site visits total (15 in Bolton, 12 in Devens, and 17 in Harvard). Four (apple core) Core Team Meetings were held with attendance around 20 individuals. Three specific (apple seed) meetings were held with attendance around 10 individuals. A survey was also incorporated into this assessment which received 130 participants 74.6% were from Bolton and 11.5% from Harvard, these participants also included individuals who did not live in the town and was just interest or they did not live in the town but worked there. The importance of peaty wetlands was realized as a significant source of carbon storage upfront and highlight healthy soil management throughout this project. The final report and project website include wetland and other educational resources, a project data viewer for easy access to project mapping/data layers, instructions and map for a self-guided field tour with interpretive trail markers and QR codes in the field, extensive documentation and discussion of both general and site-specific NBS and thumbnail scopes, costs, project planning guidelines and permitting considerations for the site-specific NBS, and a detailed project report with pull-out sections for wetlands & climate change, global context, and community-specific report material. 
• Provide a brief summary of project deliverables with web links, if available.
  • In addition to the items listed in the above question, the Project deliverables consisted of meeting minutes, PowerPoint presentations, mapping, data layer creation, educational information, a Nature-based Solutions implementation matrix and associated memoranda, and the final report – all available utilizing the Project Website link.

Lessons Learned

• What lessons were learned as a result of the project?
  • Lessons learned consisted of ensuring everything can be accessible remotely due to the pandemic related challenges. Additionally, it was beneficial to have such an interdisciplinary expert team. The innovation that came from the work related to the carbon sequestration analysis related to land use and land cover, Healthy Soils and living systems integrated to understand the potential implementation of Nature-based Solutions was encouraging. For example, the importance of wetlands and forests as significant sources of carbon storage and healthy soil management was realized and assessed as part of this project.  The carbon sequestration benefits of green infrastructure and low-impact  development techniques for development were also recognized.  The process-specific lessons learned would be that community outreach may take more time and need to be altered to gather participation from your target audience. Our team was able to accommodate such challenges and be successful in receiving input.
• What is the best way for other communities to learn from your project/process?
  • If other communities are interested in the Apple Country Natural Climate Solutions project/process they should visit our project website or reach out to the three communities’ lead representatives.

Partners and Other Support

• Town of Bolton
  • Rebecca Longvall, Project Manager (Conservation Agent)
  • Donald Lowe, Town Administrator
  • Valerie Oorthuys, Town Planner
  • Jenny Jacobsen, Town Secretary public outreach distribution
  • Lori Stephenson, Bolton Spring Farm site tour
  • Justin Schultz, Shultz Farm site tour 
• Town of Harvard
  • Chris Ryan, Director of Community and Economic Development
  • Liz Allard, Conservation Administrator
• Devens Enterprise Commission
  • Neil Angus, Environmental Planner
  • Peter Lowitt, Director/Land Use Administrator
• BSC Group
  • Gillian Davies, Senior Ecologist/Natural Climate Solutions Specialist
  • Katie Kemen, Planner, Public Engagement Specialist
  • Casey-Lee Bastien, Landscape Architect
  • George Andrews, GIS Specialist
  • Matt Burne, Senior Ecologist
  • Keith Hannon, Ecologist 
  • Jeanette Tozer, Planner & Project Webmaster
  • Dominic Rinaldi, Civil Engineer
  • Tanya Pande, Landscape Architect 
• Regenerative Design Group
  • Keith Zaltzberg, Founder
  • Sebastian Gutwein, co-founder
  • Eric Toensmeier 
• Linnean Solutions
  • Jim Newman, Principal
  • Lauren de la Parra, Climate Resilience Consultant
  • Peyton Siler Jones, Climate Resilience Consultant
• Woodwell Climate Research Center
  • Dr. Richard Birdsey, Senior Scientist