Tidal Gates Pitched

Environmentalists convinced city parks commissioners to help try to convince the feds to pay for a project to help bring cleaner water — and new marine life — into the West River.

Members of the Connecticut Fund for the Environment (CFE) made the pitch at Wednesday night’s Parks Commission meeting.

(Click here to read a previous story on the project.)

The project, which the CFE Chris Cryder said has in the pipeline since the early 1990s, would replace three of the dozen tidal gates that keep tidal salt water out of the West River, which runs parallel to the Boulevard. The gates are just south of Route 1 near the car wash. Cryder is director of restoration and stewardship for Save the Sound, a part of CFE.

The river and its tidal pool that runs most of the way from Orange Avenue to Derby Avenue are stagnant because the dozen tidal gates block Long Island Sound water from entering the river and cleaning it. If three of the gates are replaced with self-opening gates, then relatively clean tidal water can enter the river north of Route 1, Cryder told the Board of Park Commissioners at its regular monthly meeting.

Eventually, the now stagnant, oxygen-deprived, fetid stream would host an urban salt marsh that over time would become home to a number of fish, shellfish and the birds and other animals that would eat them. ​“This would allow marine life to exist again in the tidal basin,” Cryder said. He showed the park commissioners photos of water birds, baitfish and shellfish in a working salt marsh.

The project would result in the river rising from its present 1.3‑foot depth to 2.8 feet. ​“There would be more fishing opportunities and better birding and crabbing,” he said. Canoeing would be possible because the craft would not continually get hung up on the bottom as they do now.

The CFE last fall secured an $800,000 stimulus-fund grant to pay for replacing the tidal gates themselves. It now is seeking another federal grant to work on the river north of the tidal gates and on the Edgewood Park duck pond, which would rise as a result of the river’s getting deeper. They want to dig channels near the pool so help stimulate growth of the salt marsh.

Cryder and three colleagues showed up at the Board of Park Commissioners meeting to ask for support as they try to get the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to pay for the river and pond work with economic stimulus money. CFE officials met with residents late last year to discuss the project.

CFE has hired the Cheshire-based environmental consultants Milone and MacBroom to draw up a budget and do design work for the river and pond projects, which is expected later in the month. The work on the gates themselves will proceed once the state Department of Environmental Protection and the city sign off on it.

NOAA officials said they are interested, but they want to know that city residents would support the river and duck pond project, Cryder and fellow CFE Senior Director of Finance John Champion said. So, the CFE presented its plans in the hope that the parks board would write letters in support of the project.

“It would help if the parks commission would send a letter to NOAA” they said.

Both parks board President David Belowsky and city parks Director Robert Levine said they would write letters of support. Fair Haven Alderwoman Migdalia Castro, who sits on the park board, said she hopes the city won’t have to kick in money for the project. The CFE advocates suggested language in the letters letting the feds know that city lacks the money and expressing hope for 100 percent funding.

Environmental Justice

Curt Johnson, CFE senior attorney and program director, said the project would impact the Edgewood Park duck pond, which has been a magnet for generations of people to walk and play. The rising river would cause the pond to rise, he said.

Johnson, citing NOAA marching orders included the watchwords ​“environmental justice.”

To that end, CFE has told its consultants to find ways to preventing negative results from the positive river-renaissance project. Some suggestions include building a berm, a raised barrier around the pond that would keep it from spreading and turning the land around the pond mushy. ​“The ability for regular people” to use the area cannot become a casualty of the project, he said.

For example, if the benches that are placed near the pond need to be moved, the project would take care of that, Johnson assured the panel.

“NOAA is happy with the whole project, but NOAA doesn’t want to take enjoyment from people,” Champion said. CFE wants to submit its proposal to NOAA in early march and he hopes the project would receive funding in June or July, he said.

Diane Scarponi of the Friends of Edgewood Park said she wants to make sure the duck pond is protected in any project.

“I think that Curt Johnson’s description of the situation is accurate. I think we share the concerns about the duck pond,” she said. She said her group wants to ​“make sure the cultural value and the scenic value and also the recreational values are maintained.”

“We acknowledge that the pond’s got problems, but we want to make sure that this project is justified and that the pond continues to be a beloved resource for the town,” Scarponi said.