Project completed to restore tidal flow to New Haven's West River,
welcome back wildlife
Saturday, June 2, 2012


NEW HAVEN — The weather was for the ducks Saturday and appropriately so.
Save the Sound members and local and state officials flocked to Edgewood
Park Duck Pond in the rain to celebrate the completion of the largest
urban tidal restoration project in New England.

Save the Sound, a program of the Connecticut Fund for the Environment,
re-established more than 80 acres of tidal marsh and seven miles of
river habitat for fish and other wildlife by restoring tidal flow to the
West River. To further help, volunteers planted about 6,000 marsh plants
Saturday at the duck pond that will hold back sediment and provide
nutrients and a food source for wildlife.

Gwen Macdonald, habitat restoration director at Save the Sound,
explained that, in the 1920s, the city installed tide gates to control
flooding and mosquitoes. The gates allowed the West River to flow into
the Sound but closed during incoming tides. The one-way water movement
eventually dried out the West River, changing the habitat and the
species that live there.

“Three self-regulating tide gates will be installed over the next two
weeks that will prevent too much water from flowing out to the Sound,
which will bring back more native species,” she said.

Debbie Elkin, a volunteer with a shovel in hand, said she walks in the
park every day and loves seeing new wildlife, so she would do anything
she could to help restore the river, including wading into the marsh to
help plant.

Kel Youngs, a teacher from Barnard Environmental Studies Magnet School,
walked down to the river, clad in a rain jacket, because his students
are studying the metals in the marsh mud and how they will change with
the new tide gates.

“Your community has rallied to restore this river,” said Eric Schwaab,
acting assistant secretary of commerce for conservation and management
for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “You understand
the connection between healthy environments and healthy communities.”

But for many New Haven residents, it was about more than helping the
environment. It was about their past and their children’s future.

“When I was a little girl, my father used to bring me down here and we
would fish,” said Rep. Toni Walker (D-New Haven). “My father was blind,
so we didn’t expect to catch anything but it was a time for him and me
to bond and talk about life. Now we are giving families in New Haven the
opportunity to bond and talk about life.”

The project was made possible by $2.2 million from the American Recovery
Reinvestment Act and the NOAA Restoration Center.

“This shows that, no matter what is going on in Washington, D.C., or
other parts of this country, in Connecticut we can get things done,”
said Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Commissioner Dan
Esty.

As the river begins to return to its original state, river herring and
eel populations are being built back up. Save the Sound Executive
Director Don Strait explained that the repopulation is important, not
just for places like the Edgewood Park Duck Pond, but for the state. He
explained that fish leave estuaries and swim into the ocean, which
supports commercial and tourist fishing.

“(Now) native plants will grow, and fish will spawn,” said Walker. “It’s
as though you’ve given nature a booster shot.”

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Great news. We spent a lot of time playing in Edgewood Park when we were
kids in New Haven.