The landfill complex located adjacent to Rumney Marsh in Saugus, Massachusetts has evolved through several distinct phases over the past seventy years. What exists today as the Saugus Ash Monofill is not the product of a single landfill project, but rather the result of several generations of waste disposal practices layered onto the same landscape.

At Monday night’s Saugus Board of Health meeting, the Ash Landfill Closure Committee asked the Board to take a more active and structured role in planning for closure of the ash monofill located within the Rumney Marshes Area of Critical Environmental Concern.

John P. Squire was one of the most influential pork packers in 19th century New England. To support his massive operation, Squire owned significant land in what is now West Revere, right along the edge of the Rumney Marsh.

Most people have driven past Suffolk Downs a hundred times without realizing there is an active tidal creek running straight through the site. That creek is called Sales Creek. And it plays a bigger role in the Rumney Marsh and Belle Isle ecosystem than most people realize.

No, this is not a scene from an Alfred Hitchcock movie. This is Rumney Marsh on 11/16, with hundreds of European Starlings gathering in the sky in one of their classic winter flock displays.

Unlike regular aerial photography, LIDAR can pick up extremely small changes in elevation. It can read through vegetation. It can reveal hidden features that the eye cannot see. This makes it an incredibly powerful tool for studying salt marshes, which depend on subtle elevation differences for healthy tidal flow and habitat.

We apologize for the blurry photo, but long-exposure photography from 100 feet in 30+ knot winds isn't easy!

Many people know the old Franklin Park site in Saugus as a racetrack. Before the roar of stock cars, it was a horse track, and for one short and remarkable moment in 1912, it became something very different.

What happens when an abandoned highway embankment pinches a living tidal system? The water finds another path. This temporary channel is widening and eroding the marsh. It is one more sign that Rumney Marsh needs full, natural tidal flow to stay healthy.

It's not paint or pollution. It's a natural salt marsh algae that grows where sunlight, tides, and nutrients meet. In healthy amounts it's part of the marsh food web. When it grows too thick, it can signal extra nutrients upstream and can stress marsh plants.

Here is a new illustrated map of Rumney Marsh, designed to help you find trails, parking, and places to explore. Save it, share it, and enjoy your time in the marsh!

Under Massachusetts DEP rules, certain industrial facilities can stay in compliance by buying pollution “offsets” instead of directly reducing their own emissions.

Ever wonder what that “marsh smell” is, or how exactly Rumney acts as a giant natural water filter?

We may be a small, volunteer-led group, but joining NAWM helps us stay informed, inspired, and better equipped to care for the marsh we call home.

Imagine a marsh with no sound.. no birds, no tide, no life.
That’s the real horror story.

If you’ve ever walked along a tidal creek and noticed clusters of tiny holes dotting the mud, you’ve stumbled onto a whole neighborhood of fiddler crabs at work.

Clean water didn’t happen by chance, it happened because people demanded it.

That’s exactly what happens every time it rains on the Dewey Daggett Landfill, an old dump site sitting inside Rumney Marsh.

Earlier today we shared some rare 1940s aerials of the old Revere Airport, now here’s what it looked like in motion.

This incredible 1950s point-of-view flight shows a takeoff right over Rumney Marsh. It’s short, but you can see the runways, the marshland, and the coastline just as they were 70 years ago.

These 1940s aerials show Revere’s Muller Field Airport rising out of the Rumney Marsh.