$671,000 grant for Eco-Machine targets Fisherville Mill site water.

• Jurisdiction: United States
• Date: 06 August 2010

Byline: Donna Boynton

GRAFTON - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency awarded the town a $671,000 grant to create an "ecological machine" to treat stormwater and riverwater on the Blackstone River at the Fisherville Mill site.

The Blackstone River Integrated Water Quality Improvement Project, as it is formally called, will use a solar- or wind-powered Eco-Machine, a trademarked system created by Woods Hole scientist John Todd. The Eco-Machine is more like a botanical garden than an industrial treatment plant in that it is an artificial wetland that uses a series of organisms that break down the canal water and discharge the treated water back into the canal.

The Eco-Machine, which will be built on the peninsula just upstream from the Fisherville Mill site, is the first of its kind in Massachusetts. There are only three other similar facilities in the United States...