The Connecticut River Conservancy announced the completion of 20 river restoration projects in four states this year.
The organization said the work helped restore natural river flow, improved wildlife habitat, and protected clean water.
WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill spoke with Andrew Fisk, Executive Director of the Connecticut River Conservancy.
Andrew Fisk
We're really proud of the fact that we had another very successful year of river restoration projects. We did 20 of the projects in Vermont, New Hampshire and Connecticut. And I think some of the really significant ones, we continued to pull out old deadbeat dams that weren't certainly serving a purpose anymore. We reconnected for floodplains, which is an incredibly important piece of work to both improve ecological function, but it protects downstream communities from flooding, you open up a floodplain, and it's a relief valve for those floodwaters that might otherwise damage human infrastructure. And then we planted a whole bunch of trees, 16,400 trees, and then we also finished our first coastal restoration project where we constructed a living shoreline in Fenwick, Connecticut, right where the Connecticut River empties into Long Island Sound. So way up north all the way down to Long Island Sound.
Paul Tuthill
And what are some of the benefits people will notice as a result of these projects?
Andrew Fisk
Yeah, that's the great thing about these restoration projects. They do good work for the critters that live in and around our rivers, but they also have benefits for human communities. So when you take down a deadbeat dam, you reconnect rivers, and allow migratory and resident fish to move around and more opportunities to make make a family which makes more fish. And when you reconnect floodplains, you allow for flooding to inundate a flat plane and restore soil. And you also prevent those rushing floodwaters from going downstream and banging up bridges or flooding communities that have built up alongside our rivers. So benefits to critters and benefits to people.
Paul Tuthill
You mentioned it that some of the work involved removing old dams. I know there's a there's a lot more of those still out there, am right?
Andrew Fisk
Yes, there are. New England is the most heavily dam part of the country. And there are 1000s of dams that need to be eventually removed throughout the Northeast. So we have a lot of work ahead of us. We and many other partners are removing dams each year. But I think when you total all of us working together in the Connecticut River watershed, you know, a good year would be 12 dams. And you know, there are hundreds and hundreds of them that can go in order to make the watershed more climate friendly and climate adaptive and also better for fish.
Paul Tuthill
Does any of this work that you do address the pollution issues in the river?
Andrew Fisk
It can, yes. So I think oftentimes there is sediment, for example, accumulated behind a dam. And that sediment may have bad nasties in it from some of the industrial development that was served by that impoundment. And typically, that is taken away, and no longer exists inside our rivers. So it can have that effect. And it also allows for the movement of sediment. And that's actually really important. So even if sediment is clean, if too much of it builds up in a place, it actually smothers habitat, so it's not really pollution. But when you remove a dam, and you allow that river system to function more naturally, actually, you have better habitat on the bottom of those streams. So the sediment isn't in the wrong place, making it inhospitable for all the critters that like to have a river bottom that's not full of sediment to base their families. Were
Paul Tuthill
Are these projects expensive? And how are they paid for?
Andrew Fisk
Yeah, we're incredibly grateful for the many funding entities that support this work. So the projects ranged in price. So the living shoreline project down in Fenwick, Connecticut was over $900,000. A dam removal will range from maybe 100,000 to a couple 100,000. So not cheap. And then planting trees, you know, we can, the total cost for us to put a tree in the ground is probably total cost is more like 15 bucks. But we plant lots and lots of those trees. So we get funding from the state and federal government. We get funding from private foundations, individual donors and local communities. And we spent a lot of time working with a whole lot of funders in order to bring these resources to these projects. That's a big part of this work.
Paul Tuthill
There's been a lot of discussion lately, obviously about the big infrastructure law from Washington, is there federal money that might be forthcoming to help you pay for some of these projects in the future?
Andrew Fisk
Absolutely. We're really excited to scale up and we've been having a lot of conversations with our partners as well as our federal agency friends to figure out how the money is going to flow and then where it can get too, you know, as an example, we've put together project lists with just three partner organizations, ourselves and to others. And we have $14 million just in dam removal and riparian restoration projects that we can do in the next three years. So there's plenty of work. We know where the projects are. In our portfolio. If we look out a couple years, we have 60 projects on our portfolio that are in various stages of development. There'll be a lot of money come into the watershed. And we know that if we can work closely with our federal partners, we will put it to work. There's plenty of good stuff to do out there. And there's a lot of infrastructure money, as well as additional increases to other federal funding sources.
