The Water Under The Bridge Is Killing The Fish—

Trout Unlimited Aims To Embrace Deep Brook

By Kendra Bobowick

A 90-degree day in mid-June ends in a thunderstorm at dusk…

Local officials this week combated a problem complicated by the storm clouds emptying onto sidewalks, parking lots, and paved streets.

Deteriorating riverside vegetation also compounds circumstances created by fabricated surfaces and threatens stream life, said James Belden, vice president of Trout Unlimited’s Candlewood Valley chapter.

“Our biggest threats aren’t obvious; they’re not something you can take a picture of and be able to say, ‘That’s what’s killing our streams,’” Mr Belden said. “Our streams die by 1,000 cuts, it’s not just one effluent pipe or factory.”

Portions of Deep Brook located off Commerce Drive past the post office and The Gym at Newtown, and behind Reed Intermediate School, received special attention this week. Between June 19 and June 21, local TU members, federal officials, and volunteers took part in an Embrace-A-Stream project along the riverbanks. Mr Belden explained that they will be bolstering the riverbanks and eliminating invasive plant life that chokes out other vegetation.

Also working closely on this project is the United States Department of Agriculture’s division of Natural Resources and Conservation Service, and Resource Conservationist Todd Bobowick. Mr Bobowick’s division is advising on construction design, he explained.

As part of the preservation work, Mr Belden said, “We’ll go to the places with severe erosion and take away the invasive species and get the bank stable,” as he and others did Monday through Wednesday. With the invasive life, such as multiflora roses, autumn olives, and vines, cleared, “We’ll get time to get the trees to grow.”

Also, the riverbanks are cluttered with gnarled and exposed roots jutting out in areas where the soil has been washed away.

As part of this week’s project, Mr Belden explained, “We’ll set a stable angle of repose instead of 90 degrees, and bring the banks to less than 30 degrees so water can flow up instead of cutting away [at the bank].”

The erosion “is bad along the streams,” he explained. “You don’t have the deep roots of trees in the meadow where Deep Brook runs through.”

Commotion After The Storm

Following a summer storm is a scene of shimmering side streets and ground mist rising off the blacktop. Rivulets of rainwater run into streams.

Washing away with the spilt oil and antifreeze is Mr Belden’s hope of maintaining the water-linked habitats. Counting off a number of elements damaging the streams, he listed septics, storm drains, warm and dirty water from the roads running into catch basins, and hot water off the parking lots.

The damage evident in the streams and stemming from development and plant life has outgrown the state’s waterways, he explained.

“This is affecting society,” Mr Belden said. “If [the fish] start to disappear, that’s a problem.” He described a close relationship between this region’s ground water and surface water, noting the number of households using wells.

“So if you’re worried about ground water, there is an intimate connection,” Mr Belden said. “We live in a place where most of us enjoy the natural beauty and resources and take pride in what we have.” Reflecting on the town and surrounding portions of this state, he said, “It’s worth protecting.”

He leaves no one out of his environmental appeal.

“If you care about fish or not, you need to care about clean water,” he said. He further explained that “we” need to care about drinking water, the ponds or lakes where children swim, and the water used for cooking.

Following a storm, the gullies of water carrying grass clippings, sand, and water laden with pesticides or fertilizers running into storm drains is an unnatural circumstance, explains one fisheries biologist.

“If a summer storm hits the hot, sunny pavement and it runs off into the stream, there is a significant rise in temperature, and the warmer the water is the less oxygen it holds,” said Mike Humphreys, a fisheries biologist and head of the Department of Environmental Protection Agency’s wild trout program. “Trout like cold water.”

As a summer storm strikes, the water rapidly pools and then runs into the streams, adding the warmer rainwater. “This speeds the fish’s metabolism to the point that the fish can’t tolerate,” he said.

According to the website cvtu.org, the Candlewood Valley chapter, “has focused [its] recent project activity on the Wild Trout Management Area in Newtown.”

The Mechanics Of Erosion

Regarding local streams, Mr Belden said, “The entire stretch was deforested years ago for agricultural activity and when you do that, the only things that grow back are invasive. Once they get a foothold it kills maples, oaks; they’re such aggressive growers.”

When high water hits, it literally tears away the riverbanks.

“It cuts underneath and rips the bank apart,” he said. Reiterating that the only growth to replace the deforested meadow is invasive growth, he said, “The shallow roots don’t hold the bank in place.”

This week’s project involved placing large logs along the banks and anchoring them into place, said Mr Bradley.

“We’re creating a foothold for the bottom of the bank,” he said. Volunteers will also cover the ground with grass seed.

Other stretches of riverbank will be rid of invasive species.

Detailing trouble literally from the ground up, Mr Belden describes what he calls a vicious cycle.

“You see it at the edge of farm fields or anywhere trees are taken down,” he said, “You cut everything down and invasive species start growing and may attack larger trees in the area, and they proliferate, grow back fast. Other species are threatened, he explained.

“[Invasive plants] are much faster and stronger,” Mr Belden said. “Think of a little acorn — it takes 20 years [to grow to maturity], and this stuff grows four feet a year.” He describes how the invasive forms essentially overwhelm the trees and other growth.

“They steal the light and steal the water and strangle trees if they are vines,” he said.

Pavement Or Problem?

The roadways and parking lots map out serious problems for the streams, explained Mr Belden.

“Because of hard surfaces the water does not sink into the ground,” he said. “It’s warm and hitting the stream right away and not soaking into the ground.”

Ideally rainwater would fall, soak into the ground, combine with the water table, and seep into the streams over “days and days,” Mr Belden said. By soaking in, the water is cleansed as the ground filters it, but pavement impedes this process, he explains.

“With the pavement and concrete you get sheet runoff right into the stream, and that’s when you have high flash floods and erosion, and dirty water.” In the runoff is fertilizer, antifreeze, oil, and silt and dirt from erosion.

Illuminating the deadly consequences to the wildlife within the stream, Mr Belden said, “The worst thing is that [the dirt and silt] fill the space in the rocks.” The embedded residue creates a danger to the underwater environment.

“It kills the base of the food chain,” Mr Belden said. “And, the trout can’t spawn.” The fish use the space between rocks to nestle their eggs.

Mr Humphreys agreed. “They can’t reproduce,” he said, noting the impacts of developments, construction, and road sand that degrade streams.

About Our Streams           & Trout

Mr Humphreys and Mr Belden both noted the distinction between the native (brook) trout, which have been in the streams since “before the ice age,” according to Mr Belden, and the wild trout, which have inhabited local waters for roughly 400 years.

“A stream with wild trout is a gem,” said Mr Humphreys.

Should they begin to disappear, “it’s a clear indicator that upstream, things aren’t good,” he said.

Deep Brook is one of only eight Class 1 management areas throughout the state “where there is self-sustaining trout,” Mr Belden said.

“The fact that they’re there is a good indicator that the watershed and temperature are well protected,” said.

Mr Belden said, “These fish are like the canary in the coal mine for indicating water quality.” They are also the most sensitive to temperatures, he said.

The stream’s self-sustaining trout conditions may be attributed to  water quality and proximity to the larger waters in the Pootatuck River, Mr Bobowick explained.

Deep Brook runs from an area off Route 302, through Dickinson Park and Newtown Country Club golf course and into Fairfield Hills and down behind Commerce Road where it eventually runs into the Pootatuck.

More information about the Embrace-A-Stream, Deep Brook, and The Candlewood Valley Chapter of Trout Unlimited is available at cvtu.org. Information on the United States Department of Agriculture is at www.ct.nrcs.usda.gov.

A Class 1 Wild Trout management Area allows catch and release fishing with single, barbless hooks and absolutely no bait of any kind. The water is not stocked as part of that designation's requirements.