Massachusetts state officials are outlining ambitious plans for reviving Belle Isle Marsh, even as they acknowledge the last remaining salt water marsh in the city of Boston still has a long list of political and environmental obstacles to its health.

The government representatives joined with community activists and other residents last month at the 160-acre wetland north of Winthrop to mark the 40th anniversary of the Belle Isle Marsh Reservation and consider its future.

The officials included leaders of the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, which set out an updated management plan in May detailing threats to the marsh and describing some opportunities the DCR sees for improvements in management, maintenance, and beyond.

Valued resource

The plan’s goals include upgrades in such areas as flood control, archaeological research, public access, and facilities, as well as protections against vandalism, motorized vehicles, dogs, and invasive insects.

Salt marshes should thrive on a mix of tidal water and storm surges. But a persistent problem at Belle Isle, said Sean Riley, a research biologist at the state’s DCR and site manager for Belle Isle Marsh, is that the marsh no longer drains properly after hundreds of years of adjacent construction.

“You get these large flooding events – they look like a pond out there,” Mr Riley said at the Friends of Belle Isle Marsh’s annual Harvest Festival, a celebratory collection of craft tables, live music, pumpkins and more. “And really what that represents is a big dying chunk of salt marsh.”

The goal of DCR’s planned restoration efforts, he said, “is to fix all of this, so the marsh can start to function as a normal system again.”

Pending promises

When operating naturally and properly, marshes often serve as flood buffers and essential homes for migratory birds. The obstacles to restoring Belle Isle to that degree are substantial. One leading legislative measure that advocates believe would help is the Mass Ready Act. The Mass Ready bill enjoys wide support on Beacon Hill and promises a range of environmental benefits including improved protections against floods, droughts and various kinds of pollution. But it has been stuck for months awaiting final passage.

Fundamentally, the Mass Ready Act and other state actions put more emphasis on building protections against extreme weather and other climate-related problems than on ending the unnatural warming pattern itself.

The Mass Ready Act could generate particular improvements for residents in lower-income areas, such as reducing sicknesses and energy costs, said Steven Gingras, a legislative aide to state Representative Adrian Madaro of East Boston.

“We suffer a disproportionate impact of pollution,” Mr Gingras said of Boston-area residents. “Our hope is that provisions of this bill will … make life healthier not just for the residents but also for the marsh itself.”

Wider concerns

Friends of Belle Isle Marsh is a citizens group formed in the 1980s, when the reservation and visitor area was created, in an attempt to help the marsh recover from its history of industrial pollution. Other organizations joining the group for its anniversary event included the year-old Rumney Marsh Conservancy, which works to protect and restore the marshlands in Revere, Saugus and Lynn; and the Mystic River Watershed Association, which advocates for water and land protections across a 21-community swath from Winthrop northwest to Lexington, Burlington and Wilmington.

The Belle Isle Marsh and the Rumney Marsh both have governmental designations as areas of “critical environmental concern.” Rumney’s advocates are counting their early accomplishments as including some restorations of the marshland along the area’s abandoned highway embankment. “Our successes so far are relatively small things” in the initial year, Matt Hallihan, the president of the Rumney Marsh Conservancy, said at the Belle Isle event.

The Belle Isle Marsh is the largest remaining tidal marsh throughout the Mystic River watershed, said Isaiah Johnson, a representative of the Mystic River association. “It’s also one of the biggest open spaces in this part of the city — a place where people can take a break, gather, and enjoy the great outdoors,” Mr Johnson said.

Amid the political discussions over its fate, the Belle Isle Marsh Reservation provides pleasing moments of music and connections, Kannan Thiruvengadam, the president of Friends of Belle Isle Marsh, said at the festival. The festival “is a vehicle for ultimately acting and protecting the land that we all care about,” Mr Thiruvengadam said.