The Paskamanset River, also known as the Paskamansett River, is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data
The National Map
accessed April 1, 2011 river in

New Bedford New Bedford (Massachusett: ) is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts. It is located on the Acushnet River in what is known as the South Coast region. Up through the 17th century, the area was the territory of the Wampanoag Native American pe ...

and

Dartmouth, Massachusetts Dartmouth ( Massachusett: ) is a coastal town in Bristol County, Massachusetts. Old Dartmouth was the first area of Southeastern Massachusetts to be settled by Europeans, primarily English. Dartmouth is part of New England's farm coast, which c ...

. The Paskamanset and Slocums River really form just a single river, but the freshwater portion kept its earlier Indian name, while the salt-water portion is named for early English settlers, the Slocum family. The river originates in the Acushnet cedar swamp in

, and in Sassaquin Pond, also called Myles Pond. It runs through Dartmouth, passing under

U.S. Route 6 U.S. Route 6 (US 6), also called the Grand Army of the Republic Highway, honoring the American Civil War veterans association, is a main route of the U.S. Highway system. While it currently runs east-northeast from Bishop, California, to P ...

and the town's former dump, and heading toward Russells Mills, and eventually drains into the Slocums River, with an associated floodplain in Apponagansett Swamp. The river has been polluted for some years, mainly by pathogens and overly high

nitrogen Nitrogen is the chemical element with the symbol N and atomic number 7. Nitrogen is a nonmetal and the lightest member of group 15 of the periodic table, often called the pnictogens. It is a common element in the universe, estimated at se ...

levels. Both appear caused primarily by the town's dump. It was closed in 1995 and capped to prevent future contaminated runoff, but decades of waste have been leaching into the river. In addition, although the river has historically supported large river herring runs, the fish have greatly declined since the mid-1970s. This may be caused by rapid urbanization and by dam construction. Efforts are now underway to restore herring runs to the river.

References

Environmental Protection Agency

New Bedford Regional Airport Technical Memorandum No. 1.10: Wetlands

* Rivers of Bristol County, Massachusetts Rivers of Massachusetts {{Massachusetts-river-stub