Environmental Studies Graduate

Tackles Deep Brook Water Quality

By Kendra Bobowick

Connecticut College graduate and West Virginia native Emily Southard stepped boldly off the shore and into the rocky bottom of Deep Brook on March 30 equipped with a long-handled net.

Currently living in Danbury, the young woman with an environmental studies degree as of last spring has begun an internship with the Candlewood Valley Trout Unlimited chapter. The work applies to her studies for Green Corps, which is a field school for environmental work out of Boston. Nature, whether on the East Coast or farther inland, has always appealed to Ms Southard.

“I grew up in West Virginia and I was always in the woods,” she said. The outdoors held her attention as she prepared for a career, which has most recently brought her to Newtown.

“I wanted to work at something I loved,” she said. Ms Southard’s interests have propelled her into one of Newtown’s most environmentally sensitive waterways.

As part of an Embrace-A-Stream grant that Trout Unlimited (TU) has received, she will gauge Deep Brook’s water quality. Sampling will focus on the macroinvertebrates, or animals without backbones, that are big enough to see with the naked eye, and stream temperatures. Ms Southard said, “I think we’re looking to see if thermal pollution is a factor.”

Both the aquatic life and temperatures are indicators of the stream’s health, explained TU chapter President James Belden. In the past, he has explained that during summer months when flash flooding occurs, water rushes off of hot blacktop and contaminates the stream with road debris and spikes the stream’s temperature.

“Fish can’t live above certain temperatures,” Ms Southard.

Currently Deep Brook is one of only ten areas in the state with Class I stream status, which means that its trout population is self-sustaining.

Also keeping a close eye on Deep Brook is Zoning Enforcement Officer George Benson. He said, “We want to protect the water quality, [Deep Brook] is contiguous with the aquifer.” From the aquifer comes residents’ drinking water, he said. The macroinvertebrates present a “chicken and egg scenario,” Mr Benson said. “They don’t make the water quality good, but they are there because the water is good,” he continued. “Their presence indicates that good water is there.”

At the same time, the small aquatic creatures living beneath and around rocks contribute to the aquatic life cycle. “They are the bottom of the food chain for the fish,” he said.

Potentially threatening Deep Brook’s temperatures and macroinvertibrate habitat is flash flooding, for one. Wasserman Way, Queen Street, and the Fairfield Hills campus in particular offer several areas of concern — storm drains specifically will force volumes of water off the pavement and into the brook during heavy rains.

“We’re trying to pinpoint where the problems are,” he said. The data will act as proof if environmentalists find a problem. Mr Benson said, “We can point and say, ‘that’s bad,’ but we need to back it up.” Although certain harmful conditions may be obvious, he said, “We have to prove it to get grant funds.”

A recent macroinvertibrate sampling and thermographing per the Embrace-A-Stream grant had been postponed because the original date was only days after a severe storm. Ongoing studies at Deep Brook, including Ms Southard’s work, contribute to data. “We have to have the data to know what things are,” Mr Belden said.

“We want the best conditions,” Mr Benson explained, “You want a normal [water] flow.”