Project Blue Worcester Meeting – April 15, 6 PM at UUCW

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Project Blue Worcester is a new initiative by the City of Worcester Department of Sustainability and Resilience Lakes and Ponds Program. Focusing on three major waterbodies and surrounding land and tributaries—the Tatnuck Brook, Mill Brook, and Quinsigamond watersheds—we are identifying the volume of key pollutants, where they come from, and how best to restore and protect our precious blue spaces. The project will result in a plan to holistically improve water quality in Worcester’s primary recreational lakes through a framework developed by the U.S. EPA.

Our biggest challenge is managing and reducing the flow of excess nutrients, such as phosphorus, into our waterbodies. Project Blue Worcester will analyze existing data and create a plan with several goals and action steps, including:

  • Water quality goals for phosphorus, bacteria, and dissolved oxygen;
  • Management measures to reduce pollution, such as conceptual designs for stormwater infrastructure improvements that meet or exceed federal and state guidelines;
  • Public education to increase awareness and build stakeholder support for blue spaces.

 Additional details on the project are available at www.worcesterma.gov/BlueSpace

 We are kicking off this project with three public workshops in April and encourage residents and stakeholders to participate. The workshops will present an overview of the project and launch a crowdsourcing data effort. Residents and recreational users of our watersheds possess invaluable, site-specific knowledge that might not be captured in existing data. We will ask participants to contribute their insights to improve the planning process. The public workshops will introduce various options for submitting observations.

Each workshop will focus on a specific watershed, but the core content is consistent across all three meetings. If folks aren’t able to attend the meeting for the watershed they’re most interested in, they are welcome to attend any of the other workshops (April 2 or April 24). All meetings will have both in-person and virtual attendance options. If there is demand, we hope to provide Spanish interpretation to Zoom participants.

Mill Brook Watershed Workshop (Indian Lake, Salisbury Pond)
Tuesday, April 15, 6 – 7:30 p.m.
140 Shore Dr., Unitarian Universalist Church or Virtual
Register Online: www.tinyurl.com/BlueWooMill

Please feel free to reach out with any questions or suggestions, and please share this opportunity with anyone who might be interested. To receive updates about this project, please consider signing up for our program’s general newsletter, the Blue Space Splash:  https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/PobY2t9