Naugatuck Valley COG on Flickr
Where Coe Pond meets Kathy Lane.
ANSONIA — Representatives from the Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments (NVCOG) and Save The Sound will go door-to-door on Saturday (April 13) to inform residents near Coe Pond about plans to take down Seymour’s Kinneytown Dam.
Coe Pond is fed by Naugatuck River waters diverted by the dam.
One Ansonia resident has taken to the streets to raise questions about the pond’s fate after the dam is gone.
Beth Petronchak, who lives on Kathy Lane and can see Coe Pond from her backyard, distributed flyers to her neighbors last weekend warning that the dam removal may have unadvertised consequences – namely, that the pond could be completely filled in.
“What they (NVCOG) won’t tell you,” the flyers read, “is that they plan on draining Coe Pond, killing all the aquatic life in it and disrupting all the wildlife around it. They plan on filling Coe Pond with the 750,000 CY (cubic yards) of contaminated sediment that is behind Kinneytown Dam.”
That claim comes from a grant application written by NVCOG in 2022. A paragraph at the bottom of page 10 says that “the hydraulically dredged spoils (from the dam) would be sluiced down the existing canal that parallels the river’s eastern riverbank into Coe Pond, where it will be stabilized, capped, and used to create open space.”
Last month, fellow Kathy Lane resident Eddie Jones told The Valley Indy that he had never been contacted by NVCOG about the project. He said he has to rely on checking their website for updates.
NVCOG Executive Director Rick Dunne told The Valley Indy that fears about the fill-in are overblown. He said that the grant application contained a number of possible solutions for the problem of sediment build-up behind the dam, and that filling in Coe Pond was only one of them.
“We don’t know that that’s what’s going to happen,” Dunne said. “That’s one of the scenarios. The project’s not designed yet.”
NVCOG is currently conducting land surveys throughout the project area. Dunne said there will be more public outreach once the project hires a designer – he said there will be more to tell after that point.
He added that, legally, contaminated sediments – those containing PCBs, some insecticides, and other chemicals – would need to be removed and taken to a licensed disposal facility. He said only uncontaminated sediments may be used to fill in the pond.
Petronchak also raised concerns about what will happen to nearby wildlife if the pond is filled in.
Connecticut environmental groups along with officials from the local, state and federal levels have lobbied for the Kinneytown Dam to be removed, which NVCOG has called “the only obstacle preventing migratory fish from accessing miles of restored habitat.”
A fish ladder allowing fish to get around the dam was installed in 1999 but hasn’t worked for decades, preventing native species including American shad and river herring from migrating upstream.
But Petronchak worries that, with the dam removed, animals near her home could be impacted.
“We have rabbits, we have ducks, we have geese, we have bald eagles, we have beavers,” she said. She asked whether NVCOG has plans to relocate beavers that could be impacted by the loss of the pond.
Dunne told The Valley Indy last month that plans for local wildlife will come later, after field assessments have been conducted. He pointed out that Coe Pond is a manmade pond, and said that the dam’s removal will restore the area to a more natural state.
“A manmade facility is always inferior to a natural facility when it comes to wildlife,” he said. “Fish, birds, mammals, reptiles, everyone.”
Dunne, in response to concerns over transparency, also pointed to NVCOG’s website, which contains a timeline for the dam removal project. He said NVCOG was still moving along as scheduled as of April, despite a lack of communication from the current owner of the dam.
NVCOG and Save The Sound’s canvassing on Saturday will include houses along North 4th Street, Hubbell Avenue, Sunset Drive, Hemlock Drive, Hotchkiss Terrace, and Kathy Lane. It will take place between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.Click here for the NVCOG announcement.
