WESTFIELD — With a report on invasive species management turned in by Westfield State University interns for the Pitoniak property, city Conservation Director Anna Meassick said work has begun to blaze a municipal trail on the 70-acre tract on Northwest Road that the city acquired in 2017. Meassick said the first step is management of approximately 4 acres of open field on the property.

WSU juniors Abigail Mahoney and Michael Heins, students of environment science professor Lauren DiCarlo, a member of the Conservation Commission, presented their report on the meadow to the board on May 3.  Mahoney is an environmental science and regional planning major from North Reading, and Heins is an environmental science and restoration ecology major from Westminster.

DiCarlo said she started looking at the property before she joined the commission a year ago after the prior coordinator, Meredith Borenstein, had reached out to her to provide some recommendations on how to manage the vegetation.

“I went a month or two before I joined the commission. I looked at the property, saw how many invasive species there were. It was a good opportunity for students,” DiCarlo said. DiCarlo said the students were working on it all year long, starting with an independent study in the fall.

“Last fall, Abby and Michael went out and identified the invasive and native plants. This semester, they were lucky to do an internship the second half of the year with the Conservation Commission to come up with the vegetation management plan,” she added.

Mahoney and Heins told the commission they found 42 native, invasive and introduced species present in the meadow, with a high density of oriental bittersweet climbing and damaging some of the large cedar trees, and taking over and choking out native species and grasses. Other invasive species identified for removal were Japanese barberry and multiflora rose. 

The students said there was also encroachment on the rear of the meadow by dense tree stands of  black birch and white pine trees.

The property, which is under a conservation restriction held by the Massachusetts Audubon Society, has been designated a breeding habitat and rest area for migratory bird species. Meassick said the Audubon Society is all for putting in trails and using the property for outdoor education. She said the first step is management of the field, and removal of the invasive species.

The report recommends methods and timing to manually and chemically remove the oriental bittersweet, manually remove the Japanese barberry and multiflora rose and perform yearly mowing to curb invasive spread and tree encroachment on the meadow.

Both Meassick and DiCarlo said some type of herbicide with the least amount of disturbance is necessary to apply directly to the root of the bittersweet, to keep it from returning.

“Some of the invasives are so pervasive there. The only way to get rid of the oriental bittersweet — the only way to kill that is with herbicide,” DiCarlo said, adding that trying to pull it down can harm the tree. 

She said the city will definitely have to go back over the course of several years, as bittersweet seeds can be viable and germinate for years. “Mowing can help, but you have to be careful with the timing,” DiCarlo said.

Meassick said the students’ project, which she monitored for the commission, was especially helpful. She said the primary reason that conservation commissions exist is for the acquisition and protection of open space, which is a major focus for her.

“Wetland protection came in later,” she said.

“We [the city of Westfield] have three properties people don’t know that they can access, and they’re absolutely gorgeous,” Meassick said, including properties on Honey Pot Road and West Road owned by the city under conservation restrictions.

She said looking at all three, and being fresh to the job, she picked the Pitoniak Conservation Land, which is just past Camp Shepherd on Northwest Road, to focus on.  She approached the Audubon Society and asked if it would be open to making the property more educational.

“They said absolutely, anything you need, we’ll help you out,” Meassick said.

Meassick said starting in the new fiscal year, her department will have funds in the budget to start work on the field.  The work will be driven by the Conservation Commission, with the support of Mayor Michael McCabe, who she said thinks it would be a great idea to have a municipal trail.

“I would love for it to be a community-driven project,” Meassick said.  She will also be reaching out to volunteer groups to get involved.

She also said she would love to have more interns, and has spoken to another professor at Westfield State to see if he has students that need a project for the new year, who might take on the trails. Both Mahoney and Heins are in.

“Hopefully, they invite us back for removal,” they said after the presentation.

“I think the commission will have to see what kind of funding they’ll have,” DiCarlo said. “Being able to bring the students back and monitor what’s happening on the site; making sure the invasives aren’t coming back, and if they do, to remove them would be great.”