Amy Souers, American Rivers

Amy Souers is online editor for American Rivers in Washington, D.C. She is on a two-month cross-country road trip exploring America's rivers.

This morning I met Julia Blatt of the Organization for the Assabet River (OAR). I arrived early at her office at Damon Mill, an old brick factory now converted into offices and a fitness club, on the banks of the Assabet.

I'm glad I was early because it gave me some time to wander around the old mill buildings and raceways and sit under some trees by the river. After all the driving I've been doing, it was wonderful to just sit and listen to the river's gurgles and ripples. The cool, sweet river air was a welcome change after the truck exhaust on the highways! A black-capped chickadee flitted around in the branches over my head and a pigeon swooped back and forth under the little bridge to my left.

The Damon Mill was originally used to collect and forge crude bog iron ore found in the peat bogs that built up where the Assabet River bends. In the early 18th century, it was converted into a grist mill, and then into a textile mill. During the Civil War, the mill was used to produce cloth for Union Army uniforms. In the mid 1900s, the mill was shut down and the building was used to store apples. When the building was renovated for modern offices, they kept a lot of the historic characteristics.

Julia and I only had a few hours together today because she had to run to Boston to take down an Assabet River photo exhibit that has been displayed in the statehouse all week. Julia and her small staff get paid for half-time work, but they all work overtime.

"It's a great river, a great group of people, and fascinating issues. It's the perfect place to be," she says.

The Assabet River begins in the town of Westborough and flows for 31 miles. It joins the Sudbury River to form the Concord River, which eventually empties into the Merrimack.

Most people know the Assabet from the role it played in the Revolutionary War. The Colonial minutemen hid munitions from the British in Barrett's Farm, just a few yards from the river in the town of Concord. The British came looking for the arms and the colonists met them at North Bridge, where the "shot heard 'round the world" was fired.

What most people don't know about the river is that it's suffering from significant water quality problems. There are 140,000 people living in the watershed and it's one of the fastest growing areas in the state. Interstate 495 cuts through this area and lots of companies are locating here. All of this growth means more wastewater treatment plants (a type of point-source pollution) and more storm-water runoff (non-point-source pollution).

Julia says the biggest problem is phosphorous. Too much phosphorous in the river speeds up the growth of aquatic plants, like duckweed, algae, and water chestnut. These nuisance weeds form a green mat on the river's surface, crowd out other plants, clog the waterway, and smell bad as they decay. The problem is worst in the summertime.

Sixty to 80 percent of the phosphorous in the river comes from wastewater treatment plants (phosphorous is found in human waste, dishwasher detergent, and industrial by-products). There are seven wastewater treatment plants along the Assabet, a big number for a relatively small, slow-moving river. Storm-water runoff -- contaminated with things like lawn fertilizers and pet waste -- contributes 20 to 40 percent of the phosphorous.

Julia is also concerned about the amount of water being withdrawn from the river. "The more people who live here, the more water is taken out of the river to meet their needs. And that decreases the dilution of the pollutants and increases the river's temperature," she says.

So what is OAR doing about this? Julia and her team of volunteers collect water quality data to use in their efforts to regulate the wastewater treatment plants. They also hold annual river cleanups. "The biggest thing we ever pulled out of the river was a Volkswagen," she says.

And the group was part of a coalition that was instrumental in securing a National Wild and Scenic River designation for the last four and a half miles of the Assabet. President Clinton announced the designation last April for the "SuAsCo," so-named because it encompasses the Sudbury, Assabet, and Concord rivers.

Julia took me on a walk to show me what makes the Assabet wild and scenic. We took the trail just off Pine Street Bridge. It was shady and muddy and in some places it was hard to tell where the riverbed ended and the riverbank began. Great blue herons, muskrats, foxes, eels, and otters all live here. Julia pointed out a plant that her son calls the magic marker plant -- if you break the stem in half, the inside is yellow and you can write on your hand with it.

She told me, "A couple of years ago, some people said, 'Why are you bothering? The river is too polluted, too far gone.' But they're not saying that anymore. We've made real progress. Everyone is talking about the river. It's a real amenity for the people who live here."

Writers Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Ralph Waldo Emerson were all inspired by the rivers in this area. Thoreau spent a lot of time walking along and wading in the Assabet. He wrote, "A more lovely stream than this ... has never flowed on earth, -- nowhere, indeed, except to lave the interior of a poet's imagination."

Tomorrow, I'll drive north to meet Steve Brooke, the director of American Rivers' Maine field office. Cross your fingers for no traffic! Free-flowing things are good: free-flowing rivers, free-flowing traffic ...

[Editor's note: You can continue following Amy's travels on the American Rivers website.]