Park Mystery: Tidal Gates? Climate Change?

Interesting article. Is removing the tidal gates entirely and allowing the river to flow naturally an option? (presuming we are no longer trying to control the mosquitos lol). Or have we built up so much in the flood plains that we will forever be dependent on controlling the tide?.

Some interesting and not terrible news , for once! I liked learning about this. The rivers all have salt where they meet the harbor so this is a natural occurence , as is erosion. It is called an ESTUARY and the water is naturally brackish.
I don't understand why it takes so long to get permits, if this is a simple issue like Mr. Zinn maintains. Why is the State so slow to permit what seems like a simple request??

Please, can we have a follow up on the progress of this repair?

Opin1, I suspect mosquito control is still an issue, since they are vectors for West Nile virus and Eastern equine encephalitis.

I think that, in the near term, changes in precipitation are more significant aspects of climate change than temperature changes. And while "global warming" has some positive connotations for those of living in cold climates, more frequent downpours and heavy snowfalls are obviously bad things.

Thank you to Stephanie FitzGerald, Frank Cochran and the other volunteer conservators for years of helping to preserve our beautiful, unique Edgewood Park.

Thanks for the article. I also noted the higher-than-typical water levels. I think the erosion is inevitable and we will continue to lose trees on the banks while the river finds a new equilibrium. Rivers-gonna-river, and the current river channel is phony... it was created as part of the overall park design. Maybe it's time to think about some other kinds of trees that are better-adapted to the in-fifty-years version of the park. Maybe some willows or something else that likes marshy soil.

opin1, when the self regulating tide gates were installed the engineering calculations called for having three gates opening at high tide. When there are more than 3 gates allowing water to flow into the river then there is chance that some infrastructure could be threatened. At least some of the flooding noted in the article is result of the two older gates allowing water to enter.

The installation of the self regulating gates has contributed to positive changes in the river: killing phragmites which are sensitive to salt water, allowing fish too migrate to breeding ponds, providing fish for many types of birds to feed upon leading to the return of several species, etc.

The West River is still mostly ignored by the city and only the work of the various volunteer groups is keeping it in the condition that we now see. This would be an ideal time for New Haven to apply for "infrastructure" money to correct the many abuses that we dealt the river.

I want to second LaughingStock's comment and extend it. Stephanie, Frank, and.bunch of other folks have done important work for the entire West River watershed.

John, I think there is a filthy lucre argument to be made here. I'm a expatriate Chicagoan. When I was a kid, the Chicago River was a sewer. It is much cleaner now and property values (and tax revenue) from the abutting properties has gone up substantially. Closer to New Haven, the same thing is happening in Brooklyn around the Gowanus Canal.

The West River is the River I grew up playing in, from the bottom of West Rock to the edges of where Edgewood Park meets the West River Park. It has had tremendous flooding where the edges of it lapped the ball fields at The Rock's base in ankle deep water, to covering the entire Edgewood Park and only the tops of the trees could be seen as you crossed the bridges that ran across it. It was always filled with trash dumped by idiots, and treated as an outhouse like many of our rivers have been, with toxic materials from industries along their banks, and illegal bulk trash dumping, and having our sewage and storm runoff flowing into them and then into the Sound. The flood gates don't help much with mosquitos, improving the water quality and allowing fish to migrate upstream to spawn and downstream to migrate out to the Sound as they hatch is the best option, because the fish and birds and bats and other creatures eat mosquito larvae and mosquitos. We have started removing dams up rivers that had restricted fish from migrating up rivers to spawn, and that should help. Remember with West Nile Virus first started up they were putting insecticide to kill mosquito larvae into catch basins and fogging pesticides around waterways and it was killing off lobsters? We need to restore the natural order of things and improve the environment, and keep our garbage and waste out of our waterways and natural habitats, and find ways to mitigate rising waters due to global warming effects, and we need to be very careful not to adversely impact wildlife or make things worse as a result of our misguided and uniformed attempts to control nature.

Kevin McCarthy: EEE is pretty bad, but West Nile is pretty harmless, except to old people. As far as mosquitos, the worst is aedes aegypti, which carries dengue, zika, and chikungunya. This species doesn't like cold weather, but has been moving up from Florida with warmer temps. Note, while chikungunya is fun to say, it's very painful to have.

People interested in the city's rivers may want to check out the West River Watershed Association (link in the article) and its counterparts for the Mill and Quinnipiac rivers (https://millriverofsouthcentralct.org/ and
https://www.qrwa.org/ , respectively).

1644, thanks. You point out a less discussed aspect of climate change. As you note, the range of vectors such as a. aegypti change with warming temperatures, posing yet another challenge to the public health system. BTW, I'm officially an old person (67) 🤓.

Heather, one thing the river groups are addressing is non-point water pollution. The run-off of motor oil and salt from parking lots is not as visible as people throwing garbage into rivers. But it is a real environmental threat, And part of the reason why it takes so long to get a DEEP permit is that staffing has steadily fallen over time. In this case, there are also genuine public health concerns that need to be addressed. The dams should be repaired and modified, but intelligently.

I have conducted research at the tidegates for well over 10 years and have tons of data on water levels, including readings every 5 minutes for several years. This includes measurements both before and after the self-regulating gates were installed, but not since the recent damage to gates. (My research there has been inactive for over a year.) I even repaired a couple of gates when they were about to fail.
The city replaced one of the gates a few years ago. Giovanni is right that the gates themselves can easily be replaced on what is a basically sound structure. But it is clear that all (except the 3 self-regulating gates and the one replacement) need to be replaced now. 100 years is all you get.

Contact me for further info.

I don't think mosquito control is a compelling enough reason to keep these flood gates. (If it was, then we'd have similar flood gates on every river and stream, not just this one random spot). I agree with the others on here who suggested let the river be the river and flow as nature intended. Now if we've already built up too much all over the natural flood plains then I guess we're stuck with having to maintain the flood gates forever. But if we're keeping them only to preserve the current "shape" of a park or a ball field, I'd rather see the ball field raised 4 or 5 feet or whatever is needed. Yes the river banks would of course erode in the short term, but then be re-established where they were naturally intended to be. The fish could migrate without issue. Whatever the consequences for better or worse would at least be natural. And the city wouldn't have to maintain this system in perpetuity.