Complacency' keeps Norwalk River dirty, water monitor says

by Ryan Jockers —  The Norwalk Advocate, April 21, 2005

WILTON -- The amount of bacteria in the Norwalk River exceeds state guidelines, a water-quality expert told members of the Norwalk River Watershed Association last night.

Dick Harris, director of the Westport-based Harbor Watch/River Watch program, said data collected from regularly testing the 20-mile-long river -- from its base in Ridgefield to the Norwalk harbor -- and its tributaries shows that its health is not improving.

"Our biggest challenge is breaking through the complacency," Harris said in a lecture at the association's annual meeting. "The public is silent. The Norwalk River could become nothing more than a sewer. What we find is discouraging."

Since 1986, Harris has led the water-quality monitoring program, which depends on high school and senior volunteers as well as state funding to collect samples from sites along the river and analyze them in a state-certified lab in Earthplace, a nature education facility in Westport.

He told the nonprofit organization last night that 10 sites on the river had a higher average concentration of the bacteria E. coli last year than state guidelines allow. The group tested at 10 locations from Norwalk to Ridgefield on 16 occasions.

Harris noted "hot spots" -- areas containing significant amounts of bacteria -- near stormwater drains, farms and in industrial areas. His data revealed declining populations of fish, particularly winter flounder, and crabs and lobsters, and said amphibians and reptiles are disappearing from the lower half of the river.

"That should scare some of you," Harris said.

Association members -- about 40 attended the meeting held in the old Cannon Grange between the river and railroad tracks in Cannondale -- joined Harris in calling for refocused efforts to promote better maintenance of septic systems and understanding of the danger of pesticides.

They lamented the decision by the state Department of Environmental Protection to stop funding Harbor Watch's testing of the Norwalk River, which it had done for six years. The DEP will give Harbor Watch a $20,000 grant this year, but for the purpose of testing water quality in the Saugatuck River watershed.

The DEP was not represented at the meeting.

Lillian Willis, the watershed association's vice president, said the DEP's rationale was to begin compiling a plan using Harbor Watch's data while starting a similar effort for the Saugatuck River.

Willis said, however, that Harbor Watch's data for the Norwalk River is very useful -- and economic, considering it's all done by volunteers -- and the association will petition the DEP to reinstate the funding.

Improving the health of the Norwalk River should be a DEP priority, she added, as it stocks the river with trout and promotes fishing as a fun family activity.

"You think of kids in there, and you know how often a child washes his hands," Willis said. "Dick's not saying that if you touch it you die. But it should be a wake-up call."

Diane Lauricella, also a vice president of the organization, said the group will contact the chief elected officials of the seven municipalities in the 40,000-acre Norwalk River watershed -- primarily in Norwalk, Wilton and Ridgefield but extending slightly into New York -- to offer an update of the river's condition.

Copyright (c) 2005, Southern Connecticut Newspapers, Inc.

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