Robbins Dike, the First of Four Dams Removed from Red Brook, Wareham MA

First of Four Dams Removed from Red Brook

In September of 2006, Robbins Dike, the first of four dams slated for removal, was taken out of Red Brook.


Before	During	After

Red Brook is a 4.5 mile long sea-run brook trout stream that flows through the towns of Plymouth and Wareham to empty into Buttermilk Bay at the north end of Buzzards Bay . Over thousands of years, the brook trout of Red Brook, and other spring fed coastal streams, have evolved to take advantage of the food rich marine waters that their streams flow into. The salters, as they are called in the Cape Cod area, migrate out of their streams into the saltwater after they have finished spawning – usually in late November or early December. Most of them will return again to their cold water stream as the waters of the shallow bays and estuaries, where they spent the winter, warm past 65 degrees beneath the bright sun of late spring and early summer. Once they have returned, they will stay until they have completed spawning in November, and the cycle of migration will begin once more.

At one time, sea-run brook trout, like those found in Red Brook, were common in many of the coastal streams of Massachusetts . Over time, however, dams and land use altered most of the original salter streams so that they will no longer support brook trout.

At Red Brook, and a few other streams in the Cape Cod area, salters have survived despite dams and large scale manipulation of the riparian landscape to create run of river cranberry bogs, or housing developments.

At Red Brook and the Quashnet River (another salter stream), brook trout populations are rebounding after centuries of decline, because of stream restoration work that has been carried out by TU and our partners.

At Red Brook, Trout Unlimited has teamed up with Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife Riverways Department, MDFW District Fisheries Manager Steve Hurley, and The Trustees of Reservations to restore the lower mile of Red Brook to a natural state, beginning with removal of the previously mentioned dams.

Lending additional and very welcome support is cranberry grower A.D. Makepeace who supplied the earth removal equipment and machine operators for the Robbins Dike project. Additionally, Makepeace has generously offered similar assistance for the duration of the project.

Funding for the Robbins phase has come in the form of a grant from American Rivers. Money, labor, leadership, and grant writing help from the Trustees of Reservations has also played an essential role, as has a grant, combined with technical expertise, from Massachusetts Riverways. Additional assistance has come from David Gould, the Conservation Resource Manager for the town of Plymouth (I hope I got the title right David).

Of course, each of the organizations forming our restoration partnership is represented by individuals, and I’d like to mention some of them. Michael Labossierre, Andrew Walsh and Malcom Phinney ably work for the Trustees, doing much of the grant writing, permitting work and other tasks too numerous to mention. Erin Higbee and Brian Graber from Riverways use their expertise to point us in the right direction and find funding sources. George Rogers, Vice President in charge of Operations for A.D. Makepeace, has, as I mentioned before, generously provided assistance. Steve Hurley of MassWildlife’s Southeast District has been advocating for, and guiding the work at Red Brook and the Quashnet River , while very capably representing MDFW for as long as I’ve known him… a long time. And special thanks to my friends Steve Angers and John Kokozka of SEMA TU, who have attended countless meetings and work parties over the years and continue to give their free, and not so free, time to this project.

At the present time, the Red Brook Restoration Partnership plans to remove the remaining three dams over the coming summer. We will be needing help, so keep a close eye on this web-site for the dates of work parties.

If you look around, you’ll see that Trout Unlimited is doing a lot of good work through out Massachusetts and Rhode Island . It’s amazing – what a few friends can do when they get together.

Warren Winders

Red Brook Director

MA/ RI Council of TU