NHS senior tells the story of the Indian Hill Reservoir

WEST NEWBURY — In only a few minutes Tuesday afternoon, Newburyport High School senior Rourke Lee brought a three year journey to a close when he screwed in seven aluminum plaques on wooden posts at Maple Crest Farm.

The plaques, representing Lee’s Remembrance of Climate Futures sign project, trace the Newburyport-owned Indian Hill Reservoir’s history, combined with a plausible future. They also tell the story of a safe water supply amid a change in climate.

“If you told me I would do something like this a couple years ago, I never would have guessed it,” Lee said. “You always hear about these beach cleanups and stuff. As much as I think those are very important, the idea of leaving something behind as I go off to college is something I find very important.”

Lee said he decided to become more involved with the environment during his sophomore year after attending a climate change symposium put on by the Alliance of Climate and Environmental Stewards (or ACES for short).

It was during that event when Lee heard ACES board member and Northeastern University professor Thomas Starr speak for the first time. So he signed up to volunteer his time on a project designed to illustrate the history of the Indian Hill Reservoir.

Newburyport currently draws its drinking water from the Indian Hill Reservoir system (which includes the Upper and Lower Artichoke Reservoirs) and as well as a pair of Ferry Road wells. So Lee said the idea of telling its story appealed to him.

“There were a couple of other people involved at the time but they ended up leaving, so it was me and Mr. Starr working together for most of this,” he said. “I just hope this can be used as inspiration for younger and even older people who might want to leave their own mark.”

Lee and Starr decided to create seven educational plaques to let visitors taking walks along Indian Hill Reservoir at Maple Crest Farm know about the system.

Starr said the project is part of a larger chain of roughly 100 similar signs located throughout Essex County that were paid for by a $20,000 grant from the Essex County Community Foundation.

Over the past year or so, Lee and Starr have gone through the city’s planning process to make the project a reality. Although Starr accompanied Lee to many different municipal meetings, sometimes the high schooler would have to meet with the Water and Sewer Commission on his own.

“I had to go out there and be brave in some scenarios,” Lee said. “It’s definitely been a good learning and growing experience.”

Lee, according to Starr, has shown a tremendous amount of perseverance.

“This project took much longer than we originally thought it would,” he said. “But he did so much research and stayed with it through all of these meetings with city officials.”

Joined Tuesday at Maple Crest Farm by Department of Public Services Director Wayne Amaral, Starr, fellow ACES board member Arthur Currier, as well as the farm’s owner John Elwell, Lee and Starr installed the plaques.

The story told by the markers begins with a suspected typhoid outbreak in the Merrimack River drinking water in 1893.

On July 17, 1908, Newburyport established the Artichoke Reservoir in West Newbury, two miles northeast of Maple Crest Farm.

In September, 1981, the 800-million-gallon Indian Hill Reservoir was completed to supplement the Artichoke system.

“We talk about the history of the water supply but there’s a bit of a political history in there as well,” Lee said.

Looking into the future, sometime around 2040, the Lower Artichoke dam is expected to be modified to protect the water drawn from the Upper Artichoke as well as Indian Hill reservoirs from storm surges.

“There is a dam there now but it’s not quite high enough to accommodate sea level rise,” Starr said. “So we wanted to

let people know what’s coming.”

In about 2050, local communities are expected to collaborate on building a fail-safe water source at Indian Hill that will bypass the Lower Artichoke.

“We mentioned that because we want to give hope to people that we’re still working to adapt to climate change,” Lee said.

Each of the plaques also displays a QR code visitors can scan with their phones for further information.

“There’s no agenda here, just information,” Amaral said. “We just want to tell a story, get people intrigued and then, if they’re curious, they can learn more.”

A native of New York, Lee said he’s proud to have made a permanent mark on his adopted hometown’s water infrastructure. The 17-yearold will be headed to Colgate University in the fall, where he hopes to study science.

Lee thanked Amaral, Starr, Currier and the Water and Sewer Commission for all their help. He also said he wouldn’t have been able to finish the project without the support of his parents, family and friends.

“I appreciate them all,” he said.

Staff writer Jim Sullivan covers Newburyport for The Daily News. He can be reached via email at jsullivan@newburyportnews. com or by phone at 978-961-3145. Follow him on Twitter @ndnsully.