Pre-pandemic file photo
Volunteers clearing the Mill River Trail.
It’s easier to clean up rivers in rural and suburban settings than in a busy city, given obstacles like accessibility and private property interests.
Meanwhile, urban waterways like our Mill River have received less clean-up funding than they need and deserve.
That’s about to change for the Mill River. Local groups long at work on a years-long riverine revival may be the beneficiaries.
Chris Malik, a staffer from the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP), delivered that news Thursday night to the Fair Haven Community Management Team.
He announced that the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has given DEEP $100,000 to pilot an “Urban Waters” partnership.
The state then decided that the funding should go to the Mill River. It has set up a partnership with the Mill River Watershed Association (MRWA) to funnel grant proposals for deserving Mill River clean-up and environmental education projects.
“Everyone knows the Mill River is is pretty grimy and inaccessible, littered with trash, and it should be enhanced,” he said in a prepared statement. “I work with Clean Water Act funding, which generally is not for urban waters, which are very hard to work with.”
Why the 17-mile Mill, which starts in the town of Cheshire, flows through Hamden and New Haven, and discharges into New Haven Harbor on Long Island Sound?
“The Mill River was selected for the pilot study due to the robust partnerships there,” Malik added.
He cited not only MRWA but also New Haven-based river enhancement projects of Connecticut Fund for the Environment/Save the Sound, the Regional Water Authority, and the others to open, clean up and make available for bicyclists and pedestrians the once inaccessible Mill River Trail
Many of those groups will be of interest to the funding committee, Malik said. “We want to strengthen existing programs and organizations not reinvent the wheel.”
He said promotion of riverine awareness and of environmental justice are key features of the projects the funding is looking to advance.
“When locals and students are involved in monitoring water quality,” he said by way of giving an example, “we find that has ripples (unintended pun).”
No matches are required for the funding. The projects should be sustainable and operational within three years. The funds must spent at the end of five years. Proposals, to be sent through MRWA, are due in the spring of 2021.
The Mill River is a neglected jewel in our midst. So many of our rivers, streams and ponds in the New Haven area are treated like outhouses with sewer storm drain run off, illegal dumping, heavy industrial waste from former and current industries, litter and trash dumps, oil tanks, used tires and scrap metal and our other least desirable and most polluting businesses and industries have been surrounding their edges for decades making them smelly, filthy and dangerous. They could be beautiful and welcoming to people and nature alike, and provide valuable buffers to rising sea levels and the increasing floods associated with more severe storms as global warming progresses, and habitat for many endangered and threatened wildlife both in the water and in the marshes and trees and brush that surround them.
I'm glad there is an effort to reclaim the Mill River from the abuse and disregard it has suffered over the years, and to make it clean and beautiful and safe and accessible for all to enjoy once more.