Cleaning Up The Housatonic

“There’s no tonic like the Housatonic.”

–Oliver Wendell Holmes

Before the information highway, before the interstate highway, or any of the other highways we have traveled in our lives, there was the original highway that brought civilization to western Connecticut: the Housatonic River.

When the Mohican family of the Algonkin Indians ventured east over the Taconic Mountains 10,000 years ago into what was to become Massachusetts, it was the “usi-a-di-en-uk,” or the river “beyond the mountain place,” that pulled them south toward the sound. Six main tribes settled along the 149 mile length of the river: the Weataugs in Salisbury, the Weantinocks in New Milford, the Paugassets in Derby, the Potatucks in Shelton, the Pequannocks in Bridgeport, and the Wepawaugs in Milford. When the English showed up in Stratford many millennia later in 1639, they reversed the direction of settlement, working their way up the river.

In the intervening centuries, the river remained basic fact of life for those living along its shores, providing food, transportation, industry, and power in its 959-foot drop from the Berkshires to Long Island Sound. As Newtown learned early this century, it can also be a lot of fun being a river town. Today, there are more than 100,000 acres of public recreation land in the Housatonic River watershed, drawing everyone from anglers and eagle watchers to water skiers and zoologists. The intense use of the river has taken its toll. The debris of a population that can’t resist the river makes the Housatonic a little less beautiful each year.

Each year, the Housatonic Valley Association (HVA) coordinates a watershed-wide cleanup of the Housatonic River and its tributaries. Over the past six years, about a million pounds of trash has been removed from the rivers and their banks by more than 50 different organizations and countless volunteers.

The annual Source-to-Sound clean-up of the Housatonic has been scheduled for this Saturday, October 14. Groups or individuals who want to participate in this year’s should call Ruth Malins at HVA, 800/832-6482, or report to the cleanup staging areas at 8:30 am at the Route 133 boat launch on Lake Lillinonah in Bridgewater or at 9 am at the state lakeside boat launch on Lake Zoar off Hanover Road.

Amid all the change in our lives over the centuries, the ancient highway of the Housatonic River has remained constant in its beauty and utility. Like all highways, however, the river requires a little care and attention. Why not spend this Saturday down by the river? Help ensure that our generation’s contribution to the Housatonic is not simply trash.