Pittsfield Neighbor's Project Turns Sackett Brook Yellow
BEAT News
Sackett Brook in Pittsfield turned an ugly shade of yellow-brown on Tuesday morning. |
Alert neighbors notified their Ward Councilor Mike Ward, who in turn called the Berkshire Environmental Action Team. The team investigated and, indeed, the brook was yellow and murky.
They checked upstream to see if the stream was clear where two different brooks cross under Washington Mountain Road and it was. Then they called the Massachusetts Environmental Task Force at 1-888-VIOLATE (846-5283) and had to leave a message. Sackett Brook is a cold-water trout stream stocked by the state Division of Fish and Wildlife and slated to be restored by having the Hathaway Brook Reservoir dams removed, BEAT called them as well. Andrew Madden of MassWildlife said he would go right out and take a look.
iBerkshires posted a photo of the mucky yellow stream on its Facebook wall and got several responses. One reader suggested it was from heavy rain the night before; others that it may have been caused by the work being done upstream to remove the dams on Washington Mountain Road in Dalton.
The BEAT team found it wasn't the dam or rain; people out for their morning walk reported the water was clear at first but yellow and murky on their return. The cause has so far been determined to be "sediment from a nearby homeowner" who was told to cease work; the Conservation Commission is going to investigate further.
