grant Noho CPA final reporta 2023.pdf
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Final CPC Grant Report from Lathrop July 24, 2023
Report submitted by Barbara Walvoord for the Land Conservation Committee, Lathrop Community, Inc.
100 Bassett Brook Dr., Easthampton, MA 01027 walvoord@nd.edu 574-361-3857
Title of Grant: “Removing Invasive Plants and Educating the Public on Lathrop’s CR Land”
Goals of the Grant Project
(1) To support pollinators, birds, and other wildlife in our
Conservation Restriction land by controlling invasive plants
(scientific research indicates that land dominated by invasive
plants can lose up to 75% of its wildlife)
(2) To educate the public about our work and to help other
landowners do the same
Successful Accomplishment of Goals
All goals of the grant have been successfully met.
• Removing invasive plants in the Conservation Restrictions on
both our north campus (15 acres CR) and east campus (11
acres CR), all of which are wooded areas with upland,
wetland, and streams.
North campus on Bridge Rd.: As we proposed, we
concentrated on Japanese stiltgrass and Japanese knotweed
in the 15-acre CR. The adjacent land has a huge thicket of it,
but as a result of our work under this grant project, our side has only small resprouts (it’s almost impossible to
completely get rid of knotweed, as even tiny portions of the plant can resprout). The result is that native plants
can thrive in this streambed and forest, where, due to our past work, there are very few other invasives (Photos,
Appendix A).
East Campus on Florence Rd.: On the east campus CR, as proposed, we completed state one invasives removal
on the final small portion of the CR (Appendix B). Most of our work, however, concentrated on the Bassett
Brook floodplain within the CR. The floodplain had been a beaver settlement, with a number of dams. The
beavers left the area in 2022, and the land is returning to a drier floodplain bisected by Bassett Brook (Appendix
C). In this floodplain and along the adjacent land, many invasives are coming in, or resprouting from the
extensive root systems of invasives we cut in earlier years. Thus we concentrated on the brook floodplain and
the adjacent wooded areas on both the east and west sides of the brook. We were able to remove large
invasive shrubs from the areas. Invoices from LSI (Appendix D) detail the work that was done. This entire CR still
has a lot of work to do, as areas where we did stage-one removal of large invasives are now a mixture of native
plants and invasives that have re-sprouted or that are carried in by birds, animals, and water. Japanese stiltgrass
is an ongoing problem, and despite our efforts, it is increasing its range, moving up the hill toward the upland
forest, where it can take over virtually everything. We are committed to ongoing efforts to keep this beautiful
“As a professional ecologist with decades
and decades of experience I was amazed
with the restoration done by the residents
of Lathrop Community in Easthampton, MA.
Not only have they eradicated acres of
invasive exotic plants but they have put in
place an ecological management plan that
will yield excellent results for generations.
In all my years of experience this is the best
example of citizen science put into action.”
–Bill Lattrell, MS, PWS, Restoration Ecologist and
Professional Wetland Scientist, Lattrell Ecological
Consulting, LLC. And faculty member in the Conway
School program for sustainable landscape design.
Included in a 2020 landscape master plan for Lathrop
conducted by the Conway School.
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and ecologically valuable piece of land as free of invasives as we can, so that it can support a wide variety of
wildlife.
• Educating the Public: The grant proposal called for us to mount an informational sign on the north campus,
which we did, and resident volunteers continue to update and, as needed, replace or repair the many signs that
identify native plants along the trail (Appendix E). The grant also called for us to conduct a walk/talk for the
public about our invasives work. As we wrote in our interim report to you of November 10, 2022, “We did not
hold the walk-talk public program this fall. Because there was a strong surge of Covid among our residents as
well as in the area, we were concerned about people walking and talking close to one another, even though it
would be outdoors, and also concerned about the need to offer bathroom access in our common building to
members of the public. We look forward to a time when we can again safely host public programs.”
Instead, we developed a guide for identifying common invasives. Most such guides are organized plant by plant,
so you have to know the name of the plant in order to look it up. The guides are often long., so hard to carry in
the field This was not very helpful to our resident volunteers in the field, so we developed a single-sheet field
guide that can be carried in a pocket. The guide adopts a decision-tree approach with steps to guide the person
in the field in identifying whether a plant they are looking at is an invasive or not. We have mounted the guide
on our website (https://wordpress.com/page/lathropland.wordpress.com/989 ). Our website is open to the
general public. We would be pleased if Northampton city would help us make this resource known and available
to the general public through your website and/or contact lists.
Results: More Native Plants, More Pollinators, Birds, and other Wildlife
Research demonstrates that native plants support significantly more pollinators, birds, and other wildlife than
invasive alien plants. In the earlier-treated parts of our land, we have seen an increase in native plants such as high-
bush and low-bush blueberry, spiceberry, winterberry, dogwood, meadowsweet, jack-in-the-pulpit, star flower,
Canada mayflower, club moss, ferns, and others. We are starting to see these results also in the more recently
treated portions. (Before/after photos at https://lathropland.wordpress.com/accomplishments/removing-invasives-
before-after-photos/). Invasives re-sprout from underground roots and from seeds that can be viable in the soil for
up to 7 years, so follow-up is absolutely crucial, though the effort that is required diminishes over time. The areas
we treated 4-5 years ago are now nearly self-sustaining, with follow-up by volunteers who remove new infestations.
We at Lathrop are committed to this ongoing follow-up, as demonstrated by the 36 members of our resident
committee, the hundreds of hours of volunteer labor to remove invasives, the contributions of Lathrop
management, and the thousands of dollars the Land Conservation Committee raises each year from resident
donations.
Contractors
Land Stewardship Inc. which has done excellent work for us since 2014, did the weed-whacking of stilt grass and
monitoring for additional stilt grass invasion on the east campus and all the contractor work on the north campus. Jeff
Allen, who has done excellent work for us since 2016, did invasives removal in the upland forests.
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Budget
Contractor In voice
Date
Dates of
Work
Performed
Invoice # Work Done: Removing invasives in the
following areas:
Amount
Land Stewardship Inc. 1/18/23 11/22/22,
11/29/22,
12/13/22
033-2022 Northampton portion of east campus. Along
Bassett Brook and adjacent areas
3,586.89
Land Stewardship Inc. 6/21/22 6/24/21 103-2021 Japanese Knotweed and Japanese Stiltgrass
on north campus
323.47
Land Stewardship Inc. 12/20/22 8/11/22 085-2022 Japanese Knotweed and Japanese Stiltgrass
on North campus
333.13
Land Stewardship Inc 6/21/22 9/17/21,
9/27/21
105-2021 Japanese stilt grass and woody invasives
along Bassett Brook, all on Northampton
portion of east campus. Work was done
before grant was approved, so as to catch
the time before the stilt grass went to seed.
928.26
Jeff Allen 12/7/22 6 days,
4/22-
11/22
28 Northampton portion of east campus,
woody invasives
1,206.75
TOTAL 6,378.50
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Appendix A: North Campus Work on Japanese Knotweed
Pine Brook near Hatfield St. A beautiful brook, nearly free of invasives on Lathrop property, except
for Japanese knotweed.
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Japanese knotweed thicket on adjacent property
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On Lathrop property, near Hatfield Street, invasive Japanese knotweed has been removed by treatment, though it
re-sprouts every year and must be treated again. It is nearly impossible to get rid of it, since even a small piece of
the plant can regenerate. Our goal is to keep it small so that other native plants can thrive, along with the wildlife
they support. If the Japanese knotweed were allowed to grow into a thicket, the native Jack-in-the-pulpit to the
left would be smothered.
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Appendix B: East Campus, Northampton Conservation Restriction
As planned, we removed invasives from the final portion of the Northampton CR on the east campus.
The area was so heavily invaded that, after removal of invasives, very little remains (same area, at
right). What we have learned from other areas where Stage 1 removal was done in prior years, native
plants will reappear, along with re-sprouts of the invasives, and new invasives, which will have to be
treated repeatedly so that the natives can thrive. Eventually, as our work elsewhere has shown, the
effort needed for follow-up diminishes, as the roots of the initial invasives are eventually finally killed,
as dormant seeds of the invasives, which can live in the soil for many years, are exhausted, and as the
new native plants increase in density.
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Appendix C: East campus Bassett Brook Floodplain
The Bassett Brook floodplain within the
Northampton CR on the east campus had
beaver until last year, when they left. Now
the floodplain is becoming a grassy,
shrubby marsh area, potentially highly
valuable to wildlife. There are many
native plants but also many invasives.
Most of our work concentrated here.
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Appendix D: Invoices
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Jeff Allen
125 Mill Valley Rd.
Belchertown, MA 01007
Phone 413-213-0845 Cell 617-413-1927
INVOICE
INVOICE #28
DATE: December 7, 2022
DESCRIPTION HOURS RATE AMOUNT
Invasive plants removal on Easthampton Campus (Northampton Portion)
4/22/22
5/25/22
6/14/22
8/31/22
11/8/22
11/9/22
2.75
2.75
5
7.25
6.75
3.5
$42/hour
$42/hour
$42/hour
$42/hour
$45/hour
$45/hour
$115.50
$115.50
$210.00
$304.50
$303.75
$157.50
TOTAL $1206.75
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Appendix E: Informational Signs on North Campus Trail
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Resident volunteer mounts one of the small signs that identify native plants throughout the north campus CR.
.