You Asked, So We Got You Answers About The Kinneytown Dam Removal

ANSONIA — SEYMOUR — Two weeks ago we published a story about $4 million in state money going toward the long-planned removal of the Kinneytown Dam in Seymour near the Ansonia border.

Since 2023 we’ve published about 25 stories and a few podcasts on the planning process and the reasons behind why the government and environmental groups say the dam’s gotta go.

The dam is in terrible condition and has been for years. It also stops fish from mirgating in the Naugatuck River.

The issue has also been covered by local television news outlets and the newspapers of the region. The Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments has facilitated a series of public information sessions on the issue, too.

When we posted our latest Kinneytown Dam story to Facebook, readers had about a dozen or so questions and comments about the project.

So we grabbed five of the questions and send them to Rick Dunne, NVCOG executive director, to answer in an email.

The questions and Dunne’s answers are published below.

Dunne also asked that people check out NVCOG’s dedicated website to the Kinneytown Dam removal project. There’s also a story map that provides a concise breakdown of what this project is happening. Click here to check it out.

Why not make structural improvements to the dam, and put a mini hydro plant there?

Kinneytown IS a mini-hydroelectric project.

But the technology, permitting and construction costs would be the same regardless of the power generation capability. “Mini” only refers to the power generating capacity, which for mini is defined as between 1MW and 5MW. The two facilities at Kinneytown — when they were functioning — never generated more than 2.1 MW together.

Insofar as structural improvements to the dam are concerned, the Coe Pond Dam is approximately 1 mile long and varies in height, but average is about 20 feet.

The problem is that the entirety of that structure was built around 1842, is comprised of old slag, bricks, sand, and dirt that was apparently excavated from where the pond is now and stacked into an earthen berm. The entirety of the mile stretch would need to be demolished and reconstructed in order to address structural issues of the dam.

The Kinneytown Dam that spans the Naugatuck River is 30′ in height and while it is in deteriorating condition would not necessarily need substantial upgrade in order to host a new hydroelectric facility as a retrofit. 

However, the very first thing we did when we started evaluating this project was perform a cost/benefit analysis of retrofitting and/or upgrading the power generating facilities.

The bottom line is that it would take substantially more money to upgrade the facility than the profit that could be generated over a 40 year life of the turbines, based upon the various factors connected to generating power on that river (head, speed, flow, etc).

This is the reason that the private dam owners abandoned it – if they thought they could make money, they would have upgraded, maintained or sold the facility to another generating company.

It is just not a cost-effective or a reasonable return on investment for a power generating company — or anyone else — to make the investment.

And – it is important to note – that the analysis performed at that time did not include reconstructing the Coe Pond Dam, which would probably add tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars of cost to the project in addition to the estimated $57 million to retrofit the power generating facilities — all to produce a measly 2.1 MW of power. 

When you step away from the pure cost of operating a hydroelectric facility on the river, and consider the environmental benefits of removing the dam, you can’t even begin to quantify the value to the residents, the environment and the economy: restoring a major feed stock for the Atlantic fishery by opening 70 miles of new spawning grounds, bringing tourism and sportfishing to the Naugatuck River, improving the quality of life and environmental health – particularly for people who live closest to that facility, eliminating the methane produced by decomposing sediments behind the dams – there is literally no benefit to attempting to salvage the hydroelectric facilities on that river.

And again, if anyone could have made money at it in the private sector, they would have done so. 

Finally, if we hadn’t taken this on and advanced this project, it would become the liability of the taxpayers of the State of Connecticut, who would eventually pay far more to remediate this abandoned site whenever the state can get to it (they have hundreds of abandoned dams in their possession that they can’t afford to remediate). 

When are they going to dredge Hoadley Pond?

Editor’s note: Hoadley Pond is off Route 67 in Seymour and is not part of the Kinneytown Dam removal project. In the answer below, Dunne addresses Coe Pond, which is part of the project.

I assume you mean Coe Pond?

There are no plans to dredge it – testing shows that it contains the most contaminated sediments of the entire project area – far more contaminated than the sediments behind Kinneytown Dam in the main river. It is the result of 180 years of industrial chemicals, mercury, heavy metals, and other contaminants being diverted above the Kinneytown Dam into the canal leading to Coe Pond, where all of those things settled in the most concentrated manner.

Tentative plans identified that the safest method for managing Coe Pond is to stockpile the cleaner sediments from the main river on top of the existing sediments in Coe Pond once it is drained and then cap it with clean material.

If they put a green way what does that do to the privacy?

First, whose “privacy” are we talking about? The people who have homeless encampments in the woods below their rear yards and along Coe Pond?

Or the ones who now have trespassers who walk through their yards to illegally “recreate” and party on the property?

You really need to understand the layout and topography of these 200 acres to understand the questions and answers in this context.

An example I would give to you personally would be that they would suffer the same privacy issues that you would suffer if you can imagine that the city built a Greenway on the paper road of Grove Avenue at the bottom of the slope behind your house –  it’s literally that steep and that far from their homes to get to the level of the drained pond.

And that assumes that the Greenway would be in that area – which it most definitely would not.

The first thing that one would encounter at the bottom of the slope behind the homes would be a new creek that would handle some of the small stream and drainage outfalls that currently feed into Coe Pond. That creek would find its way to the approximate location of the existing spillway for Coe Pond.  

A Greenway would be on the other side of the railroad tracks along the river – so for people who live above the pond now it is a straight shot of about a half mile to get to the river’s edge, then, moving east back toward the homes and away from the river about 100 yds you would first have the Greenway, then it rises up about 20 feet and back another 50 yards you have the railroad and then the earthen berm rises about 25 feet and another 50 yards laterally above the railroad to where the pond is and then the pond is about 40 acres of area between the bottom of the slope behind their house and the top of the Earthen berm.

Entry to La Greenway would start somewhere north of the Maple St., Bridge, it could come out of the downtown through the old brass property and enter toward the river at N. 4^th St. where it would be able to pass under the elevated rail tracks to get out to the river’s edge.

It would then stay out there all the way up to Seymour where it could then cross under the next railroad structure to get to the new waters’ edge above the Kinneytown Dam or back up to S. Main St., Route 115 Seymour.

So why not take the $4 million and fix the turbines?

Because the cost of retrofitting is about $57 million — PLUS the cost of replacing the 1 mile long Coe Pond Dam.

Does this mean, once done one could boat or kayak from Seymour to Ansonia?

It means that with portage around the Falls in Seymour, you could canoe or kayak from at least Thomaston to Long Island Sound.