Many people drive down Crosby Lane in Brewster for the town beach and the adjacent, mile-long state beachfront, or to view and visit Tawasentha, the historic home of Albert Crosby.

But there’s also an extensive salt marsh, one that’s severely constricted by a clogged, 12-inch culvert under Crosby Lane.

Permits are now in place to replace that culvert and to restore flow to the upper portion of the marsh. The much smaller marsh on the western side of Crosby Lane now hosts freshwater species like phragmites (common reed grass) and the very invasive purple loosestrife.

For all the road maintenance underway on Cape Cod right now, it's the river herring that may have waited the longest for a new path.

For all the road maintenance underway on Cape Cod right now, it's the river herring that may have waited the longest for a new path.

Officials from Mashpee, Barnstable, the county, and state and federal governments celebrated Friday the new fish ladder and dam separating Santuit River from Santuit Pond. The three-year, $500,000 project was part of $5 million in economic stimulus funding appropriated in 2010 to address conservation projects Capewide.