Charles River Basin
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Charles River Basin
The Charles River Reservation is a urban preserve and public recreation area located along the banks of the Charles River in Boston, Cambridge, Watertown, and Newton, Massachusetts. The reservation is managed by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation. The portion of the reservation between the Charles River Dam and the Eliot Bridge is listed as a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places. This includes the park in the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston known as the Esplanade. The Charles River above the Watertown Dam is managed as the Upper Charles River Reservation. Features Features of the reservation include the Charles River Dam, the Charles River Basin, the Boston and Cambridge Esplanades, and John F. Kennedy Park. Charles River Dam The 1978 Charles River Dam, located behind the TD Garden, controls the water level in the river basin. An earlier dam (see Charles River Dam Bridge), located beneath the Museum of Science, was completed ...
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Charles River Esplanade
The Charles River Esplanade of Boston, Massachusetts, is a state-owned park situated in the Back Bay area of the city, on the south bank of the Charles River Basin. Description The limited-access parkway Storrow Drive forms the southern boundary of the park, with the Charles River marking the northern edge. In the park are walkways, statuary, the Hatch Memorial Shell performance stage, playgrounds, ballfields, and Community Boating. The Esplanade comprises part of the Charles River Reservation state park. The Esplanade was designated as a Boston Landmark by the Boston Landmarks Commission in 2009. History The Esplanade was originally dedicated as the Boston Embankment in 1910. The Embankment was created as part of the construction of the 1910 Charles River Dam Bridge (today the site of the Museum of Science). The parkland was criticized for its lack of shade trees, refreshment stands, recreation facilities, transportation utility, and visitors. It extended to Charlesgate (upst ...
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Watertown Dam
The Watertown Dam spans the Charles River upstream from the Watertown Bridge near Watertown Square in Watertown, Massachusetts. The dam is located where the Charles River tidal estuary historically ended (the tides no longer reach this point because of the downstream Charles River Dam). Watertown Dam is of Concrete construction, a gravity dam. Its length is . Its capacity is . Normal storage is . It drains an area of . The history of the dam traces back to 1632 when construction of a fish weir was authorized. The current dam, maintained by the Department of Conservation and Recreation, dates from 1900. It is part of the Upper Charles River Reservation. Ecological impact The Watertown Dam is the second of numerous dams located along the length of the Charles River. The current earthen dam creates an obstacle for the river herring that run in the spring, but herring have long been harvested at this site. The Pequossette (one of the tribes of the Massachusett people) inserted s ...
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Rainbow Smelt
The rainbow smelt (''Osmerus mordax'') is a North American species of fish of the family Osmeridae. Walleye, trout, and other larger fish prey on these smelt. The rainbow smelt prefer juvenile ciscoes, zooplankton such as calanoid copepods ('' Leptodiaptomus ashlandi'', '' L. minutus'', '' L. sicilis''), and other small organisms, but are aggressive and will eat almost any fish they find. They are anadromous spring spawners and prefer clean streams with light flow and light siltation. The rainbow smelt face several barriers. They are weak swimmers and struggle to navigate fish ladders preventing them from making it past dams to the headwater streams where they spawn. The rise in erosion and dams helped to decimate the smelt population in the 1980s. There are currently plans to try to reduce damming and to help control erosion. Description The body of the rainbow smelt is slender and cylindrical. It has a silvery, pale green back and is iridescent purple, blue, and pink on the ...
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Alewife (fish)
The alewife (''Alosa pseudoharengus'') is an anadromous species of herring found in North America. It is one of the "typical" North American shads, attributed to the subgenus ''Pomolobus'' of the genus ''Alosa''. As an adult it is a marine species found in the northern West Atlantic Ocean, moving into estuaries before swimming upstream to breed in freshwater habitats, but some populations live entirely in fresh water. It is best known for its invasion of the Great Lakes by using the Welland Canal to bypass Niagara Falls. Here, its population surged, peaking between the 1950s and 1980s to the detriment of many native species of fish. In an effort to control them biologically, Pacific salmon were introduced, only partially successfully. As a marine fish, the alewife is a US National Marine Fisheries Service "Species of Concern". Description Alewife reach a maximum length of about 40 cm (16 in), but have an average length of about 25 cm (10 in). The front o ...
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Fish
Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of living fish species are ray-finned fish, belonging to the class Actinopterygii, with around 99% of those being teleosts. The earliest organisms that can be classified as fish were soft-bodied chordates that first appeared during the Cambrian period. Although they lacked a true spine, they possessed notochords which allowed them to be more agile than their invertebrate counterparts. Fish would continue to evolve through the Paleozoic era, diversifying into a wide variety of forms. Many fish of the Paleozoic developed external armor that protected them from predators. The first fish with jaws appeared in the Silurian period, after which many (such as sharks) became formidable marine predators rather than just the prey of arthropods. Mos ...
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Anadromous
Fish migration is mass relocation by fish from one area or body of water to another. Many types of fish migrate on a regular basis, on time scales ranging from daily to annually or longer, and over distances ranging from a few metres to thousands of kilometres. Such migrations are usually done for better feeding or to reproduce, but in other cases the reasons are unclear. Fish migrations involve movements of schools of fish on a scale and duration larger than those arising during normal daily activities. Some particular types of migration are ''anadromous'', in which adult fish live in the sea and migrate into fresh water to spawn; and ''catadromous'', in which adult fish live in fresh water and migrate into salt water to spawn. Marine forage fish often make large migrations between their spawning, feeding and nursery grounds. Movements are associated with ocean currents and with the availability of food in different areas at different times of year. The migratory movements ma ...
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Fish Passage
A fish ladder, also known as a fishway, fish pass, fish steps, or fish cannon is a structure on or around artificial and natural barriers (such as dams, locks and waterfalls) to facilitate diadromous fishes' natural migration as well as movements of potamodromous species. Most fishways enable fish to pass around the barriers by swimming and leaping up a series of relatively low steps (hence the term ''ladder'') into the waters on the other side. The velocity of water falling over the steps has to be great enough to attract the fish to the ladder, but it cannot be so great that it washes fish back downstream or exhausts them to the point of inability to continue their journey upriver. History Written reports of rough fishways date to 17th-century France, where bundles of branches were used to make steps in steep channels to bypass obstructions. A pool and weir salmon ladder was built around 1830 by James Smith, a Scottish engineer on the River Teith, near Deanston, Perthshire ...
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Canal Lock
A lock is a device used for raising and lowering boats, ships and other watercraft between stretches of water of different levels on river and canal waterways. The distinguishing feature of a lock is a fixed chamber in which the water level can be varied; whereas in a caisson lock, a boat lift, or on a canal inclined plane, it is the chamber itself (usually then called a caisson) that rises and falls. Locks are used to make a river more easily navigable, or to allow a canal to cross land that is not level. Later canals used more and larger locks to allow a more direct route to be taken. Pound lock A ''pound lock'' is most commonly used on canals and rivers today. A pound lock has a chamber with gates at both ends that control the level of water in the pound. In contrast, an earlier design with a single gate was known as a flash lock. Pound locks were first used in China during the Song Dynasty (960–1279 AD), having been pioneered by the Song politician and naval en ...
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Longfellow Bridge
The Longfellow Bridge is a steel rib arch bridge spanning the Charles River to connect Boston's Beacon Hill neighborhood with the Kendall Square area of Cambridge, Massachusetts. The bridge carries Massachusetts Route 3, US Route 3, the MBTA Red Line, bicycle, and pedestrian traffic. The structure was originally known as the Cambridge Bridge, and a predecessor structure was known as the West Boston Bridge; Boston also continued to use "West Boston Bridge" officially for the new bridge. The bridge is also known to locals as the "Salt-and-Pepper Bridge" due to the shape of its central towers. The bridge falls under the jurisdiction and oversight of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT). The bridge carries approximately 28,600 cars and 90,000 mass-transit passengers every weekday. A portion of the MBTA subway's elevated Charles/MGH station lies at the eastern end of the bridge, which connects to Charles Circle. Design Longfellow Bridge is a combination rai ...
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Museum Of Science, Boston
The Museum of Science (MoS) is a science museum and indoor zoo in Boston, Massachusetts, located in Science Park, a plot of land spanning the Charles River. Along with over 700 interactive exhibits, the museum features a number of live presentations throughout the building every day, along with shows at the Charles Hayden Planetarium and the Mugar Omni Theater, the only domed IMAX screen in New England. The museum is also an accredited member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) and is home to over 100 animals, many of which have been rescued and rehabilitated. History Origin and early years The museum began as the Boston Society of Natural History in 1830, founded by a collection of men who wished to share scientific interests. Their first meeting was held on February 9, 1830 with seven original members in attendance: Walter Channing, Benjamin D. Greene, George Hayward, John Ware, Edward Brooks, Amos Binney, and George B. Emerson. It was more commonly called t ...
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Charles River Dam Bridge
The Charles River Dam Bridge, officially the Craigie Bridge, also called Craigie's Bridge or the Canal Bridge, is a six-lane bascule bridge across the Charles River in the West End neighborhood of Boston. The bridge, maintained by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR, formerly the MDC), carries Massachusetts Route 28 (Charles River Dam Road at this location) next to the Green Line's Lechmere Viaduct. The Museum of Science is located on the dam and nearby piers. Charles River Dam Road connects Leverett Circle in the West End to East Cambridge, but most of the road is fixed, and the asymmetrically sited drawbridge is a short span entirely on the Boston side of the river. The original lock for the Charles River was incorporated into the dam, just west of the Charles River Dam Bridge, but it was replaced by three parallel locks in the new Charles River Dam, located further east, at the site of the old Warren Bridge. The former lock at the Charles River ...
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TD Garden
TD Garden is a multi-purpose arena in Boston, Massachusetts. It is named after its sponsor, TD Bank, a subsidiary of the Toronto-Dominion Bank of Toronto, Ontario. It opened in 1995 as a replacement for the original Boston Garden and has been known as FleetCenter, and TD Banknorth Garden. The arena is located directly above the MBTA's North Station. It is the most visited sports and entertainment arena in New England, as nearly 3.5 million people visit the arena each year. TD Garden is the home arena for the Boston Bruins of the National Hockey League and the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association. It is owned by food service and hospitality conglomerate Delaware North, whose CEO, Jeremy Jacobs, also owns the Bruins. It is the site of the annual Beanpot college hockey tournament, and hosts the annual Hockey East Championships. The arena has also hosted many major national sporting events including various rounds of the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament ...
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