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Accessible Dock for Paddlers Coming Soon To The Millers River

Millers River near Erving, Massachusetts
jkb
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Creative Commons
Millers River near Erving, Massachusetts.

Athol, Massachusetts, may soon build a handicapped accessible dock on the Millers River. It will allow people to paddle to an existing accessible dock, a little downstream.

The dock would enable people to move from a wheelchair to a kayak or canoe on the Millers River.

Eric Smith, Athol's Director of Planning and Community Development said the project is also designed to draw more visitors to downtown, which is close to the river and to support accessible tourism.

"This would be one of the first unique systems where there are two handicapped accessible docks in a six-mile stretch," said Smith, "or any kind of stretch connecting together in Massachusetts.”

In Holyoke, there is an accessible rowing program. An Easthampton program offers paddling and cycling for the disabled.

Athol got most of the $42,000 price tag for the dock from the state. It's running a public crowd-sourcing campaign to raise additional funds and hopes to have the dock built by Memorial Day.

Nancy Eve Cohen is a former NEPM senior reporter whose investigative reporting has been recognized with an Edward R. Murrow Regional Award for Hard News, along with awards for features and spot news from the Public Media Journalists Association (PMJA), American Women in Radio & Television and the Society of Professional Journalists.

She has reported on repatriation to Native nations, criminal justice for survivors of child sexual abuse, linguistic and digital barriers to employment, fatal police shootings and efforts to address climate change and protect the environment. She has done extensive reporting on the EPA's Superfund cleanup of the Housatonic River.

Previously, she served as an editor at NPR in Washington D.C., as well as the managing editor of the Northeast Environmental Hub, a collaboration of public radio stations in New York and New England.

Before working in radio, she produced environmental public television documentaries. As part of a camera crew, she also recorded sound for network television news with assignments in Russia, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba and in Sarajevo during the war in Bosnia.