The Blair Pond meadow is a unique meadow ecosystem adjacent to the Alewife Reservation on the West Cambridge/East Belmont border. After many years of neglect, during which time the meadow has been overrun by invasive species and encroaching poplar and sumac saplings. Despite this, Blair meadow is still home to over 40 species of native meadow plants as well as habitat for birds, mammals and rare pollinators. This makes the Blair meadow a perfect opportunity to restore and enhance the diversity and ecological stability of an urban wild.

The Friends of the Alewife Reservation has teamed up with ecologists from Lesley University and the Harvard University Herbarium to restore the plant community of the Blair pond meadow and monitor the long-term effects of plant restoration on the avian and insect communities using the habitat. The group has received a permit from the Department of Conservation and Recreation to begin this work in the fall of 2015.

Plant restoration techniques include the removal of invasive species, the seeding of native little bluestem and native legumes, and the enhancement of soil quality using permaculture techniques to aid in the introduction of over 50 additional native meadow plants. Over the next year, the restoration team will work to establish these plant species in the Blair Pond meadow and protect the meadow from forest succession through selective mowing and hands-on maintenance.

The restoration project will involve teams of volunteers from the local community, including Blair Pond neighbors, students from Lesley University, Friend's of the Alewife volunteers and local businesses. This work will keep the community involved and excited about having a healthy native meadow ecosystem right in their local urban environment where presently heavy residential density is planned under the "Alewife-Concord" development plan of the City.

The Cambridge "quadrangle" off of Concord Ave. on the Belmont border has been an industrial area with sand and gravel works and trash storage for many years. The Blair meadow and famed shorebird Pond for Arlington birders were restored in 2012 by the Department of Conservation and Recreation under Manager Robert Lowell and designed by AECOM Corporation. For more information or to get involved in the Blair Pond restoration project, contact Ellen Mass of the Friend's of the Alewife Reservation (http://www.friendsofalewifereservation.org/) or Amy Mertl of the Lesley University Division of Natural Science and Mathematics (amertl@lesley.edu).