The management plan by PRNWR finalized in February 2024 sets timelines for implementing the decommissioning of the impoundments. Tidal flow will be restored to Stage Island by 2027 and the Bill Forward and North pools by 2035. A number of permits from regulatory agencies are required before widening culverts and other changes in the berms can begin. The Army Corp of Engineers has authority over a project involving dredging and filling in wetlands through Section 10 of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899 and Section 404 of the Clean Water Act. The project will also require a Water Quality Certification Permit from the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection. The Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management reviews projects to ensure that they meet state standards. The refuge will also be filing with the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act unit, the Massachusetts Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program, and the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries.

The North Pool Impoundment. All photographs by the author.

The Parker River National Wildlife Refuge (PRNWR), one of the premier birding locations in the Northeast, if not the entire United States, drafted a new management plan in 2023. The document is intended to guide how the refuge will be managed in the future, a time when our coastline is faced with rising sea levels and warming temperatures caused by climate change. A draft was produced for public comment in the fall of 2023 and the final document was completed in February 2024. A major change likely to affect birdlife at PRNWR is to gradually phase out three fresh and brackish (low-salinity) impoundments that have been part of the refuge since the late 1940s. This would be accomplished by breaching the berms—raised areas of fill—that currently separate the impoundments from the waters of Plum Island Sound, thereby allowing more salt water to flow into them.

Currently, the water levels in the impoundments are regulated by tide gates and precipitation. In late fall through winter, they are typically filled with seawater through the tide gates and fresh water from precipitation to facilitate winter waterfowl use and to control some of the invasive vegetation. In summer, water is drawn down to create mudflats during shorebird migration season. Under the proposed changes, the connections between the impoundments and the saline waters of Plum Island Sound would be widened and tidewater allowed to flow in and out unregulated.