South Coast scientists: To improve bay health, start at the source

Miles of rivers and tributaries, including New Bedford’s Buttonwood Brook, empty into Buzzards Bay. Researchers, advocates, and city and town officials are working together to clean them up.

Peering over the edge of a stone bridge, Francesca LoPresti cast a bucket into the Mattapoisett River. She pulled it up slowly and grabbed a syringe, filling it with the clouded water. She then squirted the water back out onto the river below, the stream forming a clean, unbroken arc.

“This is scientific,” she assured with a laugh. “We have to get a clean sample, so we rinse out the first take.”

LoPresti is a fellow with the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Falmouth. For the past week, she and her colleagues at the Buzzards Bay Coalition had been visiting the rivers and streams that make up the Buzzards Bay watershed, collecting water samples and testing them for contaminants.

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