Please join us in-person at the Marine Corps League, 181 Lake Ave, Worcester MA
or in our virtual Zoom Room on Thursday April 24, 2025
Register Online: www.tinyurl.com/BlueWooQuinsig
Agenda:
Project Blue Worcester – Help us Create a Watershed Based Plan for Lake Quinsigamond and Flint Pond
LQWA has been invited to participate in Project Blue Worcester, 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
Please, please come!! You know your neighborhood and your cove, this information is essential to developing a good plan. A Watershed Based Plan is needed for certain EPA and MassDEP grants.
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.