Massachusetts Turnpike Authority

Traffic, Tolls, Maps, Service & Tourist Centers, Park & Ride, Emergency Services, Truck Regulations, and Tourist Destinations

News from the Turnpike Authority and our Meeting Calendar

Big Dig Project Background, Updates, Photos and Artist Gallery

Turnpike History, Financial Information, Turnpike Regulations and Leadership

Contracts and Business Opportunities with the Turnpike

E-mail Form, Our Address and Phone Numbers

• Project Updates
• Parks and Urban Restoration
• Multimedia and Publications
• Project Background
  • Tunnels and Bridges
  • Facts & Figures
  • Archaeology
  • Environmental
    • What Are We Digging?
    • Quarry Hills
    • Spectacle Island
    • Gardner Street Landfill
    • Granite Rail Quarry
    • Rumney Marsh Restoration
    • Artificial Reef System
    • Controlling Diesel Air Pollution
  • Engineering Marvels
  • Mitigation
  • Equipment
  • History

Rumney Marsh Restoration

The Central Artery/Tunnel Project has restored an 18-acre section of Rumney Marsh in Revere, north of Boston. This marsh, a state-designated Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC), comprises a wetland habitat that had been partially filled in during the 1960s.

The marsh section was filled with sand as part of a 1960s plan to build an extension of I-95 through several North Shore communities. This highway plan was later abandoned in the early 1970s due to community and environmental opposition. Fittingly, the two agencies responsible for the original highway construction plans, the Federal Highway Administration and Massachusetts Highway Department, were instrumental in this restoration effort.

The Big Dig has restored the 18-acre section of the marsh as compensation for filling in portions of Boston Harbor to close and cap the former City of Boston landfill at Spectacle Island, and to construct the I-90 highway tunnel under the Fort Point Channel. The work was required by several federal and state environmental permits for the CA/T Project.

Restoration work began on the Rumney Marsh site in the mid-1990s, and it was completed in phases. First, enough sand was removed to leave the surface just above the high-tide level. The second phase involved grading to match the elevations of the surrounding salt-marsh. Inlets were created, leading to the tidal creeks which flow to the main channel of the Pines and Saugus Rivers, and allowing the tidal water to flow across the newly restored wetland twice each day. 
 

As a result of the daily ebb and flow of the tide, wetland vegetation is gradually becoming established throughout the newly created intertidal zone. As part of the project, several additional areas of existing marsh were restored around the edges of the former highway embankment, where sand has eroded onto the surface of the former marsh.

    
    

  
A total of 300,000 cubic yards of sand was removed to restore the 18-acre Rumney Marsh site. Some of the sand hauled from the site was reused on the CA/T Project, and some was used on other construction projects. The newly restored intertidal habitat is being colonized by salt-marsh vegetation -- dominated by salt-marsh cordgrass -- as well as by various species of fish, shellfish and migratory birds.

To learn more about this region, visit the Rumney Marsh website, which has great information and photographs.  For more information, start from the top of our environmental section. Also, find out about the 26 inland and coastal ACECs in Massachusetts, totalling approximately 178,000 acres statewide. The Department of Environmental Management (DEM) administers the ACEC Program on behalf of the Secretary of Environmental Affairs.