Supporting the
Future of North Adams
What is a Watershed?
Physically, it’s a land area that channels rainfall and snowmelt downhill, through streams and rivers, to outflow points such as reservoirs and, eventually, the ocean. Politically, a watershed property is an area designated for safe collection of drinking water from rainfall.
01
North Adams Watershed
In North Adams, our drinking water comes from the northeast facing slopes below Mt Greylock (more specifically, Mt Williams, Mt Fitch, and Ragged Mountain).
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The greyish areas indicate the physical watersheds (sloping ground) as defined by upper ridges, through outlet at the Hoosick River.
We have two reservoirs. The uphill reservoir named Notch, and the lower reservoir, Mt. Williams. The Mt. Williams reservoir is fed by a pipe from the Notch reservoir, in addition to streams from its own smaller watershed area.
The creation of dams and reservoirs effectively divided the upper portions of these watersheds from the lower. The water collected in reservoirs is now piped to homes and businesses, through which it still eventually reaches the Hoosic River.
02
Dams
This map indicates two watershed properties.
The upper, pre-dam Notch watershed in mustard yellow, and the pre-dam portion of the Mt Williams reservoir in brown.
03
Ownership
Parcel Ownership - the yellow and brown outlines indicate the physical watershed basins.
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The brown areas are owned by the city of North Adams, or the
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State (DCR) as labeled, and the
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lavender areas are the closest privately owned parcels - notice no privately owned property is significant - the watershed areas are already owned by government – so we don’t have to buy more land in order to establish protections.
We just need a good plan and political will.
04
Forest
Both watersheds are forested, with nearly 100% canopy cover upstream of the dams.
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Some of this forest is relatively young, such as the softwood plantations that were planted by WPA in the 1930’s and 40’s, and areas that reforested naturally on previously cleared farmland. (1940 aerial map.) Some areas are older, probably 150 years since farmers ceased to maintain clearings.
The planners of the city of North Adams chose wisely. Our city-owned watershed properties are on predominantly east- and north-facing mountain slopes, which means their soils are not dried out by direct afternoon sun. Numerous streams provide constant cold water even in times of drought, like the summer of 2024.
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The forest protects the soils further. Water infiltrates soil in the steep, rocky upper reaches of the watershed, and emerges farther down, in seeps at the head of streams, where the slopes become more gradual.
Seep: A place where water pools out of the ground.
Overtopping : When water flows out over the top of a dam instead of through the intended outlets.
05
Protection
Because there is no motorized vehicle access on our watershed, these seeps, which may be up to half an acre of constantly wet earth, function as filters for the ground water. They are also important for wildlife, since they have primarily herbaceous (nonwoody) plants in the wettest areas, and the emerging water is usually above freezing year round, but surrounded, and in summer, shaded by tall trees.
These are fragile soils. If rutted by wheeled vehicles, they would reverse function from purifying our water to filling it with mud.
Beyond the seeps and stream edges, which would be at least nominally protected buffered from logging, all forest soils are vulnerable to being dried out and losing their current water protection functions. Heavy vehicles create ruts, changing water flow direction, compact soils decreasing infiltration and spreading up run off, thus reducing the slow release that kept our water supply adequate through last summer’s drought, kill mycorrhizal fungi, and tree roots impede recovery of plant life for decades. Canopy removal from cutting large trees leaves newly exposed soils vulnerable to being dried out by increased sun and more direct impact from raindrops thus increasing runoff rates and erosion.
Increasing runoff rates and erosion leads to overwhelming our reservoir with silt (reducing the volume of water it can hold) at the same time as increasing the amount of water entering it immediately after large rainfalls – which can lead to overtopping. Overtopping is often followed by dam failure. Dam failure is exceedingly dangerous for houses and roads (and everything else) downstream, besides being very expensive to fix or rebuild.