Wicked Local DANVERS — For the last 20 years, students at Essex Tech have passed the torch onward for a research project studying the salt marsh on Eastern Point in Gloucester. The project is part of an ongoing, collaborative study with Mass Audubon. Through the study, a generation of Essex Tech students over the past two decades have collected data monitoring the composition of the salt marsh vegetation as well as the fish and crustacean population there. Students additionally continue to study the ground water salinity at the marsh. While the study initially set out to analyze the impact of the invasive Phragmites australis (the common reed) and the restoration of the marsh, data being collected today also provides insight into climate change and sea level rise.