Town River Stewards Committee
Meeting
March 21, 2006
Location: Site walk - Scotland St. bridge and Titicut St. bridge
Today, the following: Warren Turner, Kent Kreutler, Beth Roll and Jim Howell met with Doug Cameron of Massachusetts Game and Fish concerning canoe put-in sites. We met at the Scotland St. Bridge in West Bridgewater and expected to have a representative of Mass Transportation join us because they will be making a new bridge there and it is hoped a canoe access could be planned into the build site. However, the representative from Mass Trans. did not make it. Warren will call him so he can be put in contact with Doug to facilitate and coordinate the idea of a canoe launch as part of the plans. There will apparently be a need to get permission to use the land adjacent to the river for an ADA ramp.
We then visited Titicut St. in Bridgewater where the bridge over the Taunton river is south of the prison. Doug felt that could be a good site for a launch if the state owns the land.
The Satucket River launch site is apparently largely done already and the funding is from the state. Any launch they (Fish and Game, Fishing and Boating Access) build is covered by their funding and does not require private spending. Doug has already visited the Titicut Park area off of Vernon St. for a possible Taunton River put-in there and has previously visited the Town River sites in Bridgewater at Julio's and at the Beech tree area on the opposite side of the river there.
The keys to access sites' construction are: getting the proper permitting from Con Com; obviously, land use permission if not state or town owned; parking off of road edge for 4 to 6 vehicles; town agreement to assume responsibility for maintaining the access sites after construction by the Fish and Game.
Submitted by Jim Howell
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