SER Webinar: Small Dam Removal (12/3)

The Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) presents a webinar about river restoration, using lessons learned from 20 years of removing dams in Massachusetts.

SER Webinar:
Small Dam Removal: Lessons Learned from 20 Years of Dam Removal in Massachusetts

Thursday, December 03, 2020
9:00 – 10:00 AM, PST

Regulations and funding sources for river restoration vary considerably across each of the 50 United States of America. In Massachusetts, a state with over 3,000 dams, dam removal has been employed as a means to restore riverine ecological processes and eliminate public safety liabilities since around 1999. Over the last 20 years, more than 60 dams have been removed in the state with approximately 50 of those involving the state’s Division of Ecological Restoration. This presentation will describe the evolution of the practice of dam removal in Massachusetts including lessons learned, ecological and community benefits realized, and the goals and challenges for expanding the practice in the future.

To register, please visit SER's GoToWebinar page. 

About the Speaker:
Nick Wildman is a Certified Ecological Restoration Professional and the Dam Removal Practice Lead for the Massachusetts Division of Ecological Restoration. As part of this work, Nick is the Division's lead on several high-profile dam removal projects and directs the Division’s overall efforts to increase the frequency of and benefits from dam removal in the state. Since 2010, he has co-led the Division's work examining the economic effects of restoration. He is also the former Vice Chair of the Narragansett Bay Estuary Program’s Steering Committee. Nick has over 13 years of private and public sector experience directing river and wetland projects in the northeast. He is a graduate of the University of Maine at Machias (2000) and holds a Master of Environmental Management degree from Duke University (2005).