Carla Villa

Here at IRWA, we prefer to think of your dormant, end-of-summer, dried-out lawn as a golden trophy — the prize for protecting our ecosystem! Did you know traditional grass lawns and ornamental gardens mess with our water in three ways? 1. They require a lot of water to stay green during a typical summer2. Fertilizers, […]

Massachusetts has a two-year legislative cycle, and a one-year budget cycle. The 2023-2024 legislative session ended on August 1, 2024. IRWA staff and advocates have been hard at work over the past two years building coalitions and pushing for our legislative priorities. Here’s a legislative session debrief on how our priorities ended up: The Drought

Pictured left to right: IRWA 2024 Summer Interns Molly Stevens, Maeve Hitchcock, Aidan Davie, and Olivia Whynott Hi! My name is Molly Stevens, and I’m IRWA’s Science and Restoration intern. I’m a rising senior at Dartmouth College, currently living in Nahant, Massachusetts for the summer. At Dartmouth, I’m double majoring in Earth Sciences and English—two

After catching and evaluating a red-bellied cooter, MassWildlife and US Fish and Wildlife Service released the endangered turtle back into the Ipswich River. Recently IRWA Staff was joined by MassWildlife at the Ipswich Mills Dam to investigate sightings of an endangered species of turtle, a Northern red-bellied cooter. After observing the turtle on and around

 Ipswich River Watershed Association (IRWA) is excited to announce we received a $100,000 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to help break down barriers to place-based education and environmental careers for youth within the Ipswich River watershed. IRWA is one of 38 organizations nationwide to receive funding under EPA’s Environmental Education Grants Program.

Hello! My name is Maeve Hitchcock and I’m from Swampscott, Massachusetts and this summer I am the Climate Resiliency Intern here at IRWA! In the fall I will be a junior at Brandeis University in Waltham majoring in Environmental Studies with a minor in Climate Science, Justice, and Policy. In particular I love learning about

Hi, I’m Abby Torres, a recently graduated high school student from Marblehead MA! For the past four years, I attended the Pingree School in South Hamilton, and over the course of this May and June I was fortunate enough to work with IRWA to complete a final project. During our last spring at Pingree, all

Erin Bonney Casey has been named as our next Executive Director, beginning on June 17th. She succeeds Wayne Castonguay who led IRWA for almost 13 years.  According to IRWA President Ken MacNulty, the Board of Directors engaged in a rigorous search and had a number of excellent, highly qualified candidates. Erin, who is currently serving