Little Mussachuck Creek Marsh Restoration

1939 aerial photo of Little Mussachuck Creek marsh showing the northern inlet Courtesy: Save The Bay

Alternative 2. Breaching the Barrier Beach at the Historical Northern Inlet
Manual breaching of the barrier beach in the location of the historic northern inlet had always posed an attractive solution to restore hydrology to the northern marsh. However, dynamic coastal processes and human perturbation of these processes were understood to be at the root of the problem. Because the longshore movement of sediments was known to be in a northerly direction, inlet breaching to the northern pond would not be self-sustaining and would require annual or even more frequent disturbances to the system to keep the inlet open.

Therefore this alternative was not preferred by the Land Trust or by technical experts. However, resolving the human alteration (seawall) to the shoreline geomorphology was identified as a potential future management action that will be pursued after the performance of the preferred restoration alternative is evaluated.