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caption, page 2:
Eroded
The banks of the Quinebaug River in Simonzi Park. The town is coming up with a nature-based design to fix the erosion problem. Linda Lemmon photo.
Stopping
erosion of
the river
bank
By Linda Lemmon
Town Crier Editor
PUTNAM — Having received comments from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recently, the town feels it is on the right track with its proposed design to solve the long-standing erosion problem at Simonzi Park.
Town Administrator Elaine Sistare said the town hopes that by spring they might have 30 percent of the design phase completed — enough to start moving toward a formal permit application for the project. Currently the town is in a pre-application phase for the project.
Ten years ago the town proposed heavy rip rap as a solution to the extensive bank erosion along the Quinebaug River at the park. But, Sistare said, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is in charge of the river, did not approve the plan. They believed, she said, that that type of repair would just “push the problem downstream.”
The Board of Selectmen had approved using some of the town’s American Rescue Act Plan funding to start the design phase of a plan that would pass muster with the Corps.
The design being developed is “nature based,” Sistare said. It would involve a gentle sloping-back of the shore instead of trying to shore up the drop off there now. She added the plan being developed also calls for a “pollinator meadow” type buffer instead of the grass that’s near the shore now. That type of native vegetation will hold the soil near the shore better than grass would. In addition, she said the plan, as it stands now, calls for “designated fishing piers” instead of anyone fishing at any spot along the shore.
She hopes that by spring that “perhaps we can begin some part of it.”
It will likely be a multi-phase, expensive effort as the bank erosion actually runs all the way up toward the Kennedy Drive-Rt. 44 intersection.
The worst erosion is at Simonzi Park but there are several areas of the river bank up toward that intersection which also need attention.
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