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In northern Connecticut, this creek
is again home to native brook trout.
In central Connecticut, this park
is again busy with recreation.
In southern Connecticut, this wetland
is again buzzing with wildlife.
What do these places have in common?
The Housatonic River.
The Housatonic River flows from north
of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, down to Long Island Sound.
It's about 150 miles long, and the watershed
covers about 2,000 square miles.
The Housatonic River is really a remarkable resource.
Anyone who has had an opportunity
to travel the river, from the Pittsfield, Massachusetts area,
through the agricultural and swamp lands
of the upper watershed, to the Great Falls,
down through the series of cascades
and rapids between Falls Village and Bulls Bridge
can only begin to appreciate just how
dramatic and wonderful and remarkable that resource is.
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The entire Housatonic River valley
was a hotbed of industrial activity late 1800s
into the early 1900s and mid-1900s.
The General Electric company built a huge transformer
factory in Pittsfield, and they used
this Polychlorinated Biphenyls, PCBs, to cool transformers
for electrical work.
And they had been inappropriately
dumped and flushed into the river here and there.
There was so much of the waste that entered into the river
and polluted much of the area near the plant.
And that started approximately 1932
and ended in the early 1970s.
We negotiated with General Electric,
and in 2000, received a settlement of approximately $15
million to implement compensation
for natural resource impacts.
Bottom line, it was a public trust resource
of which the value of that public trust resource
declined because of PCBs.
So how does the Natural Resource Damage
Assessment and Restoration, or NRDAR, program actually work?
The NRDAR process is authorized under the Clean Water
Act, the Oil Pollution Act, and CERCLA, better known
as Superfund.
The process involves assessing injuries
to natural resources and natural resource services,
as well as recovering injured resources and the public's
use of those resources through restoration projects.
The program works in partnership with federal, state,
and tribal trustees to restore natural resources that
are part of the public trust.
In the case of the Housatonic River,
PCBs were released into the river
from the General Electric plant in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
The river and its watershed were assessed
for injuries to natural resources
and loss of natural resource services.
In 2000, a consent decree required
GE to provide $15 million to the trustees for natural resource
damages.
Then, approximately 50 projects were implemented
to restore aquatic, riparian, and recreational resources
in western Massachusetts and western Connecticut.
Within the context of the NRDAR program,
there are frequently multiple entities
that have a responsibility, and particularly
in the case of the Housatonic River,
there are four entities that have primary interest
or responsibility here.
The trustee agencies, the state of Massachusetts,
the state of Connecticut, the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA,
and the US Fish and Wildlife Service
worked to assess the impacts to natural resources
from the releases of PCBs from the General Electric site.
And there was ultimately a consent decree
entered into where GE and the trustees
concurred on what the value of that damage was.
GE to put up those funds, and those funds
were to be distributed between the Commonwealth
of Massachusetts and the state of Connecticut
with a small portion held in common use
by the two trustee subcouncils representing
both of those geographic areas.
After the settlement in 2000, there
was a period of about seven years
when we were doing public information meetings
and actively looking for restoration projects.
We sought input from the public and went out
with a request for project ideas.
We got quite a lot of response from the public too,
and it was that breadth of proposals
that really enriched the entire planning process for us.
We had over 50 project ideas submitted by the public,
and we were looking for projects in three different categories.
The first is the aquatic resources within the river,
the second is floodplain and riverine resources,
and the third is recreational resources.
The intent of our work, as mandated under the NRDAR
regulations, was to restore, replace, rehabilitate,
or acquire the equivalent of the natural resources
and services that were injured.
So for the Housatonic NRDAR project,
we had about $8 million to expend in Connecticut
with interest, and we selected over 30 projects to implement.
One of the most satisfying things to me
was that we just involved so many different types
of partners, and so we were able to do so many different kinds
of things.
The goal for Powerline Marsh is to restore the marsh
to a more natural state by creating
six large pools and interconnected channels
to enhance the wetland habitat of this 50-acre marsh.
The goals of this project were to enhance wildlife habitat out
here, primarily for water birds, waterfall, shorebirds,
and long-legged wading birds.
There's very little, if any, surface water out here,
no standing surface water like the pond we're standing on now.
So at low tide, all this would drain out,
and there was no standing surface
water for wildlife habitat.
The goal for Sega Meadows Park is
to develop a 23-acre park along the Housatonic River
with nature trails, camping sites, and designated
areas for fishing and boating.
The goal is mostly to give recreational access
to the public to this property.
Before this project, we had no access through the park
and really no place for people to park.
The goal for Salmon Kill Creek is to restore and enhance
the riparian corridor, and instream habitat
along 1.8 miles of the creek.
Throughout the northeast, our focus is brook trout,
and so when we were deciding on the different treatments,
our goal really was to help promote
cover stream canopy to shade and really
help to reduce temperatures in the creek,
and so they'll have these deep pools that
will provide that cold water.
The goal of the Native Meadows Preserve project
is to purchase and restore a 25-acre riparian forest
and floodplain habitat along the Housatonic River
in New Milford.
Permanent protection of the property
will ensure that the property continues
to provide wildlife habitat and limited recreational access
to the public forever.
Utilizing settlement funds and working
with a variety of partners, more than 200 acres of land
were protected across the watershed in Connecticut.
The goal was to help maintain intact floodplain habitats,
provide public access for fishing and hiking,
and protect biologically-diverse riparian wildlife habitat.
Many local organizations and towns
assisted with the land protection projects.
When it rains hard.
How do you develop and implement restoration projects?
Partners.
Where's it going?
I think partners are one of the most important aspects
of the work that we do, because when
the partners implement the projects,
they have more ownership in them.
And they take care of them, and they sustain the projects
for the future.
And it's that essence of working together toward common good,
with clear goals, with passionate people,
with multiple resources.
That's really what makes change happen.
Without the other partners, we would not
have been able to do everything that we have accomplished here
at the park, and that's been a huge benefit,
a huge benefit for us.
We just didn't have the equipment or the manpower
or enough funding to be able to do that.
So to have volunteers and other groups involved made it happen.
And also, having all these other people
scattered throughout the Route 7 corridor
to work together, to share ideas with,
and to come together and promote what we're doing in New
Milford as part of a bigger, a much bigger thing.
That raises our standard.
On Salmon Kill Creek, partners are working
to restore brook trout habitat.
Today, Trout Unlimited and a bunch of other partners
all got together to restore the banks of the Salmon Kill,
but also to educate the local community about the Salmon Kill
Creek and about how to better protect it by learning about it
and connecting.
So for the students coming here today,
hopefully, they've made a connection to this area,
to the environment, and they can then hopefully
become stewards of that environment
and continue to protect it into the future.
On Powerline Marsh, the Connecticut DEEP
relies on partners for this and other restoration projects.
We have a small program, in Connecticut,
and we rely very heavily on partners, outside funding
sources, and things of that, because we do not really
generate our own funds.
We have to go out and seek outside funding.
So this was a major opportunity to do some great restoration
work on this section of the Housatonic River.
At Sega Meadows Park, New Milford Parks and Recreation
tapped local talent to add more benefits to their park.
An organization that played a tremendous role
in making Sega Meadows the success it is today
is the New Milford Youth Agency.
We were approached by the New Milford Parks and Rec,
and they were looking to see if the students and area
youth want to get involved in that restoration.
And to me, the most exciting thing they did
is this amazing stairway.
There was a very steep decline going down
to one of the lower river basins.
You used to have to really carefully walk down this thing.
And so we actually put in, I believe
it's like 40-something stairs, six by sixes,
going up that embankment to control the erosion.
Students were able to learn in that facet
how to really control the erosions
and protect that that hillside boundary,
and so that was a great project for us and the kids to work on.
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So how do you create a successful restoration project?
You do need to have a team approach
for so many reasons, technical as well as financial,
get support groups and others backing you.
Try to get people as educated as possible,
so we're not working in a vacuum.
Be open and honest with yourself that your doing the public's
work, that the public is the one who has the primary interest,
and you need to listen to them.
Relationship building is 80% of the job
in getting the restoration projects done,
and it didn't take very much communication.
Just checking in really is helpful to getting
the projects moving.
That really is the key is just making sure everybody's
informed about what's going on where,
when, so that things don't fall through the cracks.
Everyone always has their own ideas
on how they want a project to develop,
how they want to see it come to fruition.
So respect everyone's opinion, even though it may not
have been your opinion.
Think carefully when you're implementing projects,
just how many you want to get involved with implementing.
There are trade-offs between doing a large number
and a smaller number.
Even with a very small department,
you can get a lot accomplished, as long as you go outside
and look for other people to give you a hand.
And I think that was one of the big lessons learned
was to bring in other people, and it can be accomplished.
It's impressive to you get this number of projects done,
and it's a lot of balls to keep in the air at once,
but you can accomplish a lot of really good work,
a lot of really good work.
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This restoration is important, because it
adds to the cleanup of the river,
and it touches so many people that live along the river.
It's opened some windows for conversation
about watersheds and habitat and the importance of cold water.
I don't think any of that was really on people's minds
as much as it is now.
I think, as the community sees the changes
and they see the wildlife coming back,
they'll be more invested in protecting it into the future.
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