In a few minutes the sun will burn the dawn fog from this small section of the Great Marsh in Ipswich, Mass. At more than 20,000 acres, this ecosystem of uplands, barrier beaches, tidal creeks and mudflats serves a host of purposes from flood protection for homeowners to a nursery for fish and shellfish that the local seafood industry depends on. (Photo by Coco McCabe/GroundTruth)
For New England coastal dwellers who have toughed out countless nor’easters, the benchmark of bad was the blizzard of 1978 when a storm surge swamped shore communities with nearly four feet of water above the predicted high tide.
Back then—40 years ago—it was easy to dismiss that extreme event as an anomaly. Not any more. With climate change, anything is possible: Last January, a new record was set when storm waters rose even higher, sloshing into downtown Boston streets. Two months later, another storm surge, almost as high, inundated the streets again.
Where I live, next to the Great Marsh stretching for more than 20,000 acres from Cape Ann to the New Hampshire line, those two storms howled at us for attention. They demanded that we recognize the vulnerability of our own communities and that of more than 59 million people—their power plants and sewage treatment systems, their airports and low-lying roads—packed into coastline counties along the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. Whether they know it or not, these communities depend on marshlands for flood protection.
It’s not just infrastructure that’s at stake. Marshes are the foundation of a food pyramid where all kinds of aquatic life gets its start: they are the nurseries for the commercial fisheries that feed us and that support a multi-million dollar seafood industry.
I think about climate change every day, and fear its consequences. When storms roar in, I can hear the waves pounding the beach as they suck sand from the protective dunes. Whipped with white caps, the tidal river beyond our kitchen window swells way beyond its banks, scouring the roots of towering oak trees until they topple.
As the ocean reclaims the creeks and mud on a summer evening, clammer Russell Fowler, Jr. returns to shore with his haul. He says the clam flats in the Great Marsh are the best office he’s ever worked in. In Ipswich, a commercial clamming permit costs $450, which a good digger can reportedly earn back in a day. (Photo by Coco McCabe/GroundTruth)
In October, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a new report warning that if we continue producing greenhouse gas emissions at our current rate, by 2040 our atmosphere could warm by 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit above preindustrial levels. The effects could be disastrous—just 20 years from now.
The global politics of tackling climate change are daunting, particularly here in the US where our own president, a climate change skeptic, has announced we will withdraw from an international pact to curb emissions. The enormity of the problem makes me feel hopeless, until I think about the Great Marsh and all that it does both to support a vibrant way of life in the towns in its midst and to protect them from the ferocity of the Atlantic.
The largest contiguous stretch of saltmarsh in New England, this vast ecosystem of barrier beaches, tidal creeks, uplands and mudflats winds through seven Massachusetts communities where more than 85,000 people live. All of us rely on this mostly undisturbed wilderness to buffer storms, reduce coastal erosion, and minimize the effects of flooding. Many of us make our livings from the bounty the land and water provides through clamming, fishing, and tourism. And we’re not alone in that dependence: This is also vital habitat for migratory birds, including threatened species like the piping plover and the saltmarsh sparrow.
On a foggy summer day, the Great Marsh in Newbury almost glows with green. These waves of grass, called Spartina patens, can be cut and used as hay. A healthy marsh is one of the cheapest and most effective ways to protect vulnerable communities from sea-level rise and climate change threats, says coastal scientist Peter Phippen. (Photo by Coco McCabe/GroundTruth)
The Great Marsh is intact for now, but it’s increasingly under threat. Human activity along its fringes and, more ominously, sea-level rise, warming temperatures, and bigger and more frequent storm surges are all taking a toll. Ensuring the health of this gem, where teams of scientists are exploring how to safeguard its vitality, starts with public awareness. And that’s what this photo essay aims to do: it’s a paean to coastal mud and grass—and all the life they breed and protect—everywhere.
Photographer’s statement
“Be here now,” says my husband, with some frustration, when he sees me, yet again, disappear behind the lens of my camera. The thing that I have a hard time explaining to him is that I am here:Through that tiny viewfinder on the back, a whole world is waiting to be examined, closely, from every possible angle. I can’t resist it.
I’m late to this practice—decades late, alas—but not ill-prepared for it: For most of my life I have been a writer and editor, and have traveled extensively to some of the most difficult and often remote places on our planet. For me, photography is very much a physical enterprise. It gets me out of bed long before dawn so I can be where I need to be to catch the morning light. It carries me through the rain and fog, mud and snow, delighting in the elements even as my toes and fingers ache with cold. I am here now.I love to be.
And that’s why I’m exploring the Great Marsh, a vast and wonderful wilderness that passes right by my door.In the face of climate change, I am deeply worried about the fate of these 20,000-plus acres—and the fate of all of us around the country who depend on salt marshes like it to feed us, to protect us from storms, to give us a wide-open sky and endless space to romp. I want others to feel the same urgency I feel about this vital resource, its uplands and beaches, creeks and mudflats.Even if they never have to swat at a marsh mosquito or scrape mud off the bottom of their shoes, I want people to get a feel for the place, and to marvel at it all.
Scientists Alyssa Novak and Peter Phippen gather data from a new bed of eelgrass in the Great Marsh in Essex. Volunteers spent three years transplanting more than 25,000 plants here. The eelgrass is a boon to the ecosystem, says Novak: it helps water quality, stabilizes sediments, and shelters baby marine animals. (Photo by Coco McCabe/GroundTruth)
For me, the picture of the osprey chick, with its wings spread and orange eyes boring into the camera, sums all of this up. I went at dawn one morning with Dave Rimmer, from the Essex County Greenbelt Association, on a mission to band some of the chicks before they were big enough to fly off.He’s working to help restore the osprey population, and banding helps him and others keep track of the birds. We went at high tide so there would be enough water in the channels to run the boat up onto the grasses near each towering nest, giving Rimmer a few minutes to jump out with a ladder, retrieve the chicks, band them, and return them to their aeries.
I know I shouldn’t anthropomorphize, but I feel there’s a warning in that chick’s glare, a call to action. A lot of people I met with for this photo series are heeding that call. They’re studying the marsh, working to rid it of invasive species, trying to restore what’s been lost. Others might not be activists—not yet—but the Great Marsh speaks to them, nevertheless: they swim in its waters, fish its channels, dig in its mud for clams. And when big storms whip in from the Atlantic, the marsh is there, thankfully, to soften the blow for everyone nearby.
In 2018, the Great Marsh looks much as it did when Native Americans harvested its bounty, and plenty of people still paddle its waterways. Dan Noyes, a boat builder, modeled this vessel after the first fishing dory to be sailed single-handed, west to east, across the Atlantic in 1876. Poling his replica down Fox Creek, Noyes was on his way from Newbury, Mass. to Essex, Mass. to pick up a set of sails. (Photo by Coco McCabe/GroundTruth)
Heeding the call of the Great Marsh in Newbury, Chris Howe was up early on the summer solstice for a romp with her dog, Kane. The pair often heads to the wide open space here where dogs can run free. (Photo by Coco McCabe/GroundTruth)
A powerful winter storm on March 2, 2018, pushes tide waters high enough to drown a road across the Great Marsh, temporarily cutting off hundreds of households at the far end from essential services in Ipswich. A healthy marsh can help protect coastal residents by softening the force of surging tides and heavy surf. (Photo by Coco McCabe/GroundTruth)
As the ocean reclaims the creeks and mud on a summer evening, clammer Russell Fowler, Jr. returns to shore with his haul. He says the clam flats in the Great Marsh are the best office he’s ever worked in. In Ipswich, a commercial clamming permit costs $450, which a good digger can reportedly earn back in a day. (Photo by Coco McCabe/GroundTruth)
Clammers in five Great Marsh communities dug more than $5 million dollars worth of clams last year. Tourists flock to Massachusetts towns like Ipswich and Essex, the two biggest clam producers on the Great Marsh in 2017, to dine on the bivalves. Clammers harvest them even in the coldest months. (Photo by Coco McCabe/GroundTruth)
Rachel Munsell loads bait fish into lobster traps aboard the Loan Shark. The boat is docked in the Ipswich River estuary, part of the Great Marsh. Munsell spends six months of the year lobstering with her stepfather, who owns the boat. (Photo by Coco McCabe/GroundTruth)
As cool ocean water winds through the Great Marsh, it warms up. This bridge over Labor-in-Vain Creek in Ipswich always draws a jumping crowd at high tide on hot summer days and nights. At low tide, the exposed rocks and mud below discourage leaping. (Photo by Coco McCabe/GroundTruth)
Long before European settlers arrived, Native Americans depended on the Great Marsh, its medicinal plants, its shellfish and game and its clay and grasses, to support their way of life. On a hill above the marsh is a rock commemorating Masconomet, a native leader who died here in 1658. Visitors pay their respects by leaving tokens. (Photo by Coco McCabe/GroundTruth)
A plein air painter on Choate Island, a 135-acre preserve in the Essex River estuary, captures the Choate House, which was built more than 250 years ago. The island was the setting for the 1996 movie The Crucible. Based on the play by Arthur Miller and starring Daniel Day-Lewis, the movie is a fictionalized account of the Salem, Mass., witch trials in the early 1690s. (Photo by Coco McCabe/GroundTruth)
Maya Seide, 10, lunges for a catch at Crane Beach in Ipswich. Owned by The Trustees, the beach draws about 350,000 visitors a year and serves as a buffer between an often stormy Atlantic and the fragile wetlands behind it. One of the gems of the Great Marsh, the beach is also a globally important nesting site for the threatened piping plover. (Photo by Coco McCabe/GroundTruth)
On the back side of Crane Beach in Ipswich, once thriving marshland is crumbling and giving way to sand. If you look at just the climate effects, it’s going to be more energy hitting the beaches and more overwash and more water, says Tom O’Shea, program director for coast and natural resources for The Trustees. So it’s going to mean some loss of beach and shoreline, and loss of marsh. (Photo by Coco McCabe/GroundTruth)
Riders on the commuter rail to and from Boston get a gorgeous view as the train cuts through the Great Marsh in Newbury. But as pretty as the scene is for travelers, it comes with a cost to the wetlands: Total nightmare, says Peter Phippen, a hydrogeologist and coastal scientist. The train tracks block vital nutrients from flowing into the marsh, he says. (Photo by Coco McCabe/GroundTruth)
A flood tide swamps the uplands dotting the Great Marsh near Crane Beach, turning them into islands. Neighbors call this one Pine Island. When the tide is low, a dirt road to the left of these posts allows clammers to drive across the marsh and launch their boats in a creek.(Photo by Coco McCabe/GroundTruth)
Trolling the water off Eagle Hill Road on the Great Marsh in Ipswich, Adam Smith in the stern and his son, also named Adam Smith, pull up traps loaded with green crabs, an invasive species that dine on baby clams. To fight the invasion and help preserve an important livelihood, the men receive a bounty of 40 cents a pound for crabs they catch. They then sell them in New York City as bait for other fishermen. (Photo by Coco McCabe/GroundTruth)
On a sweltering summer day, Peter Phippen donned protective clothing for a spraying mission on the Great Marsh. He was tackling pepperweed, an aggressive invasive species that crowds out native plants. As coastal coordinator for the Great Marsh region of MassBays National Estuary Program and the Merrimack Valley Planning Commission, Phippen goes out in all weather, trying to boost the marsh’s natural resilience. (Photo by Coco McCabe/GroundTruth)
David Rimmer, director of land stewardship for the Essex County Greenbelt Association, and Jane Rumrill, the association’s events and outreach coordinator, band an osprey chick on the marsh in Newbury. Since Greenbelt established a conservation program for the birds, their numbers more than tripled to 40 nesting pairs in 2016. (Photo by Coco McCabe/GroundTruth)
Just banded, this osprey chick glares from its nest on a platform on the Great Marsh. Females lay two to four eggs in the spring. About two months after the birds hatch, they begin to fly, but they stick with their families while they learn to fish. Adult ospreys tend to return to the same nest each year. (Photo by Coco McCabe/GroundTruth)
Alyssa Novak, a coastal ecologist and research assistant professor at Boston University, works with Peter Phippen, a coastal scientist, to measure vegetation height and density on the Great Marsh in Newbury. Both scientists are dedicated to ensuring the health of this vast wilderness. The wooden posts in front of them are the remains of an old straddle on which mounds of salt hay were stacked, once a common sight on the marsh. (Photo by Coco McCabe/GroundTruth)
Ryan Joyce (in the orange coat) and Greg Bettencourt, both with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, get ready to test the water off Pavilion Beach in Ipswich to investigate why local mussels are flourishing. Their findings could help others establish new mussel beds on the marsh. (Photo by Coco McCabe/GroundTruth)
Geoff Walker, a water fowler and conservationist who has long dedicated his time to helping preserve the Great Marsh, examines a healthy bed of mussels. He’s working with a team to study water conditions that are conducive to mussel growth. Mussel reefs can serve as natural storm buffers and help protect the coastline. (Photo by Coco McCabe/GroundTruth)
Scientists Alyssa Novak and Peter Phippen gather data from a new bed of eelgrass in the Great Marsh in Essex. Volunteers spent three years transplanting more than 25,000 plants here. The eelgrass is a boon to the ecosystem, says Novak: it helps water quality, stabilizes sediments, and shelters baby marine animals. (Photo by Coco McCabe/GroundTruth)
In the mid 1900s, most of the eelgrass in the Great Marsh was wiped out, probably by offshore pollution. Vast beds have now dwindled to about 10 acres. An invasion of green crabs hasn’t helped: They destroy the grass as they forage for food. (Photo by Coco McCabe/GroundTruth)
On a foggy summer day, the Great Marsh in Newbury almost glows with green. These waves of grass, called Spartina patens, can be cut and used as hay. A healthy marsh is one of the cheapest and most effective ways to protect vulnerable communities from sea-level rise and climate change threats, says coastal scientist Peter Phippen. (Photo by Coco McCabe/GroundTruth)
In a few minutes the sun will burn the dawn fog from this small section of the Great Marsh in Ipswich, Mass. At more than 20,000 acres, this ecosystem of uplands, barrier beaches, tidal creeks and mudflats serves a host of purposes from flood protection for homeowners to a nursery for fish and shellfish that the local seafood industry depends on. (Photo by Coco McCabe/GroundTruth)
