My name is Marina and I’m an environmental science and political science double major at Drew University. I’m so excited to have started an internship at Save the Harbor/Save the Bay yesterday and it was a very exciting first day! We went down to Victory Road Park in Dorchester to meet some of our partners from Boston Properties and 200 Clarendon do some cleanup work. The park is very pretty, situated as a peninsula on the Neponset River, with a view of Marina Bay. And little did I know, it is just around the corner from my apartment! My first day with Save the Harbor and I’m already seeing what is so special about the Boston coastline and how accessible it is.
We were at this location for this event because the park has become a dog park, because the locals need someplace to walk their dogs. However, because the city has not set it up for dogs, the park has become full of waste. Unfortunately, that waste washes off from the park and gets into the river. The goal in our event there was to clean up that dog waste so that it will not wash downstream and make it dangerous to swim at the nearby Tenean Beach. That plan was dampened by the rain on Tuesday, which washed most of the waste into the river before we arrived. But, we still took advantage of being in the park with such eager volunteers and we managed to clean up a lot of the storm wash-up that wound up on the beach from the N'or Easters this winter.
Getting right into the thick of caring for our coastline was a great way to lead off my summer internship. My passion is working to make natural spaces cleaner, safer, and more accessible for people who live in cities. I believe that we can find solutions to the problems that urban natural spaces face, so that they can remain somewhat wild while still working for the people who use them. Victory Road Park is a great example of this, the locals needed somewhere nearby to walk their dogs so they started using the park. Now we just need to problem solve so that the park can fulfill their needs and be sustainable at the same time. And I look forward to being a part of that that plan and solution this summer.
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