Navigating change: New energy for a group working to revitalize the Boquet River ecosystem

The Boquet River Association is growing a volunteer network committed to restoring a vital waterway and its surrounding habitats.

By Zachary Matson

To some, the Boquet is overlooked and underappreciated. But a band of devoted volunteers are working to ensure it gets the attention it merits. They’re building up a friends group like never before. “People really want a river association—something active,” said Vic Putman, president of the Boquet River Association, (BRASS). “I was fed up with not seeing stuff get done.”

Starting at the source

A herd path uphill of Route 73 rises along the river’s headwaters into the Dix Mountain Range, where a collection of mountain streams drop sharply off the High Peaks’ eastern flank in a series of dramatic waterfalls, chutes and chasms.

Charlotte Staats, head of the Adirondack Mountain Club’s trail crews, Jess Grant, a conservation associate with the Adirondack Council, and Colin Powers, a filmmaker making a career change to river restoration, set out on the trail on an overcast spring morning.

The trail hugs the riverbank as short cascades give way to calm pools. Sharp bends open to stretches of stone masses hemmed by cedars, hemlocks and hardwoods.

Nearby is Shoebox Falls, a swimming hole and, during high flows, a destination for whitewater paddlers. The water washes over short and smooth rock slides into a narrow chute between a truck-sized boulder and a house-sized boulder. A waterfall spills into a deep rectangular pool sculpted into the bedrock. 

“There’s the shoebox,” Grant said as her dog, Kosa, waded in. About a mile upstream, they turned back at Lilypad Pond before the trail steepens at the base of Grace Mountain, but the trio promised to return in search of the Boquet’s highest point—the start of New York’s steepest river. 

“I’m coming back,” Staats said. “And I’m going as high as there’s still a trickle.” Grant said she would, too.

‘New energy’

That enthusiasm for the river doesn’t end at the quest to explore its headwaters. Staats, Grant and Powers are all new BRASS board members. 

Formed in 1984 with the support of the Essex County Planning Department, BRASS, like the river it represents, has flashed in and out of activity. The small nonprofit championed removal of the old mill dam in Willsboro and restoration of historic salmon runs, studied the threats of erosion and sedimentation and in its four decades planted more than 270,000 trees to stabilize banks. 

But in the past dozen years, towns withdrew funding, volunteer participation waned without paid staff and the organization’s long-time leaders started to step back. BRASS nearly went defunct, unable for three years to gather a quorum for board meetings. That ended in January 2023.

“There was a lot of energy, latent energy,” said Putman, a former Essex County planner and longtime BRASS member who took leadership as meetings restarted. A wave of new board members, including young professionals in environmental and conservation fields, joined veterans to jump start the association.

With funding from the Lake Champlain Basin Program in 2024 to hire a full-time executive director and develop a strategic plan, BRASS is looking to harness its new energy into more consistent and effective projects to protect the river and its 280-square-mile watershed.

In late-April, dozens of volunteers met at a farm in Wadhams to help restore a floodplain with a long history of cattle grazing and floods. Trout Unlimited secured funding and lent their administrative expertise to help organize the event. The Essex County Soil and Water Conservation District and Juniper Hill Farm dug holes, and the conservation district took over the important work of keeping the plants watered in the weeks and months after the planting event. BRASS organized volunteers, identified willing landowners and coordinated what became the association’s largest volunteer event. 

“We wouldn’t get these big turnouts in the past,” said Bruce Misarski, a board member for 15 years.

Thirty volunteers on Friday and 50 volunteers on Saturday planted over 1,300 trees along three-quarters of a mile of river: willows, dogwoods and alders closest to the bank. Robust oak, yellow birch, maple, American hazelnut and sycamore saplings diversified the variety of plantings.

In time, the shrubs and trees will grow to stabilize the riverbank, shade and cool the water and improve waterfront habitat for birds and other wildlife.

A healthier riparian corridor can slow floodwaters, and dead and decomposing trees support the river’s dynamic system. 

“We are here to build community and restore this river as much as we can,” said Luke McNally. A forester with the Ruffed Grouse Society, he joined the BRASS board in 2019 while with The Nature Conservancy. The conservancy, like other organizations, has a growing interest in the Boquet as state and federal agencies seek to reestablish landlocked Atlantic salmon runs from Lake Champlain.

Land use threats

Many sections of the Boquet suffer from a history of intensive land use: unsustainable grazing, road building, dam construction, undersized culverts and river straightening for log runs.

Those impacts have eroded banks and flushed sediment throughout its channel— even as water remains crystal clear and water quality rates high. 

“Everything that can disrupt the equilibrium of sediment transport has happened,” McNally said. 

The section the volunteers planted has severely undermined banks winding through farmlands. Though BRASS planted there in the past, sometimes inundated or dry soil, along with hungry cows, wiped away most of those earlier trees.

A tall weeping willow, glimmering a bright spring yellow, loomed as a rare exception. BRASS deployed more strategic planting and continued watering to ensure growth.

Grant, who helped bring some of her Adirondack Council colleagues to the event, said the connections BRASS has built with local farmers, elected officials and residents make it special.

“While it’s a small, scrappy organization, it’s connected to the community in a way I don’t always see,” Grant said. 

Beavers—real and analog

Upstream of Shoebox Falls, a beaver meadow fills with shrubs and young trees. A long, rocky bank offers a glimpse of higher ground ahead. The trail climbs along the northern edge of the meadow as the calm, narrow river stretches out below.

A bit further upstream, more contemporary beaver damming established a small impoundment. But the dam was breached in a recent flood, possibly during heavy rains last summer or in December, leaving behind a small but bleak patch of land.

Drowned timber and duff covered rocky shoals as the river passed between two halves of a long beaver dam. A separate beaver lodge appeared active. 

“Probably millenia of beaver activity up here,” Powers said. 

As BRASS moves to an ambitious agenda, some board members are brainstorming how to replicate the work of beavers to help restore river habitat and bolster it against future flooding. So-called beaver dam analogues built in the Boquet’s narrow tributaries could help reconnect the river to its floodplain.

Following the lead of Ausable River champions

The practice of river restoration has moved well beyond planting, still a fundamental component of river health, and some BRASS board members hope to expand its toolkit.

As climate disasters increase attention on floods, resiliency, dam removal and clear passage for aquatic life, BRASS could leverage its homespun status to implement more substantial projects. 

“This is all kind of smacking us in the face as we get more and more rain,” McNally said. 

Like BRASS, the Ausable River Association (AsRA) was formed through the Essex County Planning Department. The organizations with adjacent watersheds once worked out of the same office, but they followed markedly disparate trajectories over the past decade.

The younger AsRA emerged on the cutting edge of Adirondack river restoration in the wake of Hurricane Irene and has grown from a single employee to a 12-person staff. Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, AsRA renamed itself the Ausable Freshwater Center, with a new office and education center in Jay. 

Meanwhile, the older BRASS ran through numerous leaders before becoming solely a volunteer group around 10 years ago. 

The different organizational paths may be explained by the different rivers.

The Ausable flows prominently through the High Peaks, visible from long stretches of busy state roads central to tourism hubs and pricey second homes. The Boquet slithers away from the busiest parts of the park, cloaked by wooded slopes and rugged terrain. 

AsRA has helped BRASS over the years, offering its restoration expertise and suggesting a merger of sorts. But BRASS insisted on maintaining its independence. 

“They have the capacity and that is something BRASS has not had without an executive director — the literal manpower capacity we used to have,” Putman said.

Now, BRASS hopes a full-time director will be more effective at winning grants, carrying out projects and engaging community members. 

“If you ask Victor, he is working full time for the river association and I did too,” said Anita Deming, who helped found the organization and served as its past board president. 

She said it is exciting to see the organization rise. 

“I’m tickled pink,” Deming said.

‘The river connects us all’

Responsible for maintaining and rebuilding High Peaks trails, Staats grew up in Westport, bushwhacking in Split Rock Wild Forest. She often waded into the Boquet. 

“It was my swimming hole,” Staats said. “The water that starts out in the headwaters sees everything from High Peaks topography to towns and farmland. It sort of encapsulates in my mind a lot of the varying terrain and communities within the watershed.” 

Staats, 29, and Grant, 27, said a new generation of volunteers and employees working in Adirondack organizations is thinking creatively, bringing new technical skills and the long-term perspective of people with decades ahead in their careers to tackle emerging challenges. 

“They bring a lot of energy and exuberance,” Staats said. “They aren’t nestled in their ways. They are able to rock the boat.” 

They also recognized the wisdom and experience of older members, the importance of an “intergenerational connection,” Grant said. 

“You get new people in and they bring new energy,” said Shell McKinley, another longtime BRASS board member. “It builds on itself.”

The new BRASS board members see a similar energy throughout the watershed. The popular Otis Mountain music festival sells out in minutes. Elizabethtown residents work to make the community a mountain biking hub. And new businesses opened in Wadhams and Whallonsburg. 

BRASS’s to-do list includes rebuilding a popular fishing platform in Willsboro; supporting culvert replacements, water supply studies and sewer projects; assisting flood-prone residents with government buyout programs; more planting; advocating for septic repairs; dealing with invasive species; and removing small dams and other human-made structures. 

“They are all issues that require continuous educational programming to residents and politicians alike,” Putman said. “We can be the local voice.” 

While it flows directly into Lake Champlain, Hoisington Brook near Westport shares the terrain that shapes the Boquet. Dave Golembeck purchased a home on Hoisington Brook in 1998 and raised his two sons there. Now, he rents in Westport. The stream evicted him after a litany of floods in recent years. While poking around the old culvert on Ledge Hill Road that he said often clogged and backed water into his low-lying yard and house, Golembeck spotted a tool case sitting in a shallow eddy.

“I’ve been looking for these,” Golembeck said as he inspected the case, a still usable socket set that once resided in his garage. “This was quite the find.”

Golembeck is working with Powers and other BRASS board members to seek a buyout from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He said it would be difficult to tackle the lengthy bureaucratic process without the support. If a federal buyout fails, they may pursue one from a new state program. 

Golembeck estimated about $175,000 in home and car damages from the floods. The abandoned house was still a clean-up site this spring, full of mud-caked floors, ripped up boards and unsalvageable clothes. 

“The hardest part is when you grab photo albums of your kids growing up, and the stuff is destroyed,” he said.

Salmon run

The Boquet is central to attempts to restore Atlantic salmon runs up Lake Champlain tributaries.

As scientists seek to establish spawning wild salmon and build sustainable populations, organizations like BRASS, Adirondack Land Trust and The Nature Conservancy are working to set the table for the fish’s revival.

Removing culverts and planting riverbanks is improving and extending suitable habitat for when more and more salmon make their way up the Boquet.

In May, BRASS hosted fisheries experts with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and state Department of Environmental Conservation at Noblewood Park to offer the latest on the restoration work.

Biologists have observed a smattering of salmon returns and reproduction in the Boquet River, but they are continuing to experiment with how to raise the most successful hatchery fish to stock.

They plan to map the Willsboro Cascades to determine what types of flows enable fish passage upstream and continue to support habitat restoration.

“If these fish can get to the habitat they will spawn and they will reproduce,” said Laurie Earley, of the Lake Champlain Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office in Essex Junction, Vt.

Willsboro Supervisor Shaun Gillilland operates a beef farm, Ben Wever Farm, on 500 acres abutting the confluence of the Boquet’s Main Branch and North Branch. He and his parents signed a conservation easement with the Adirondack Land Trust to enshrine sustainable farming practices and ensure the property can never be developed. He said he has seen a lot of local farms close over the past 19 years but also highlighted a growth in young farmers looking to diversify their products and engagement with customers. 

“It’s lucrative for the heart but not the wallet,” Gillilland said, while showing off a long wash buffered by pines, spruces, willows and maples. BRASS volunteers planted the trees in 2001.

If all goes to plan, salmon runs will fill the river along the farm—drawn back to historic spawning grounds. Gillilland said a successful salmon restoration could be a boon for Willsboro. Maybe one day the town can host a salmon festival. 

Paddling from a put-in below the Whallonsburg Grange to a takeout on Sunset Drive, Colin Powers, 61, and his son, Liam, canoed past tall eroded banks and through gentle rapids. Ferns grew out of the detritus washed downstream. The Boquet has a wilder feel in places than its neighbors to the north, the Ausable and Saranac. The only sign of the homes and farms above is a rare barn or irrigation pump. Past Ben Wever Farm in Willsboro, the river drops through the cascades at the old dam site and slows as it makes one last major bend and eases through a sandy floodplain carpeted with ferns and towering, smooth-barked sycamores. The final stretch through Noblewood Park is a birding hotspot and smooth glide to the lake, where distinctive Camel’s Hump Mountain in Vermont enters the view.

“It’s epic,” Powers said.

Photo at top: Split Rock Falls on the Boquet River in New Russia. Photo by Eric Teed.