Naugatuck Valley COG
The Kinneytown Dam, the removal of which will affect the design of the Naugatuck River Greenway.
ANSONIA – SEYMOUR – The Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments (NVCOG) announced on June 10 that it received a $270,326 state grant for the planning and design of a trail along the Naugatuck River.
The trail, which will pass near the Kinneytown Dam and extend from N. 4th Street in Ansonia to Derby Avenue in Seymour, is part of the longer, 44-mile Naugatuck River Greenway. The money will be used to figure out the exact path the trail will take, according to NVCOG Executive Director Rick Dunne.
Dunne said that questions to be solved by the grant include which bank the trail should run on and where river crossings should be placed. The biggest obstacle to consider is the rail line which runs near the river, Dunne said, and how to ensure safe access to the trail from the other side of that line.
The new section of trail will be about two and a half miles long, according to a press release from NVCOG.
The expansion of the trail is also connected to NVCOG’s Kinneytown Dam Removal Project, which is in the concluding stages of a survey of the area. Dunne said that the path of the trail will be contingent in part on that project, since the removal could slightly shrink the Naugatuck River and create more land along the banks.
Construction will likely not begin until after the dam is removed. That removal is currently scheduled to be completed sometime in 2025.
Click here for the Valley Indy’s past coverage of the dam removal project, which has been controversial among nearby residents in Ansonia.
The money for the trail design comes from the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (CT DEEP) through its Recreational Trail Grants program, which awarded $10 million this year to similar projects throughout the state. Last year, Ansonia, Waterbury, and Naugatuck received grants through the same program for other parts of the trail.
NVCOG’s press release quotes Ansonia Mayor David Cassetti and Seymour First Selectwoman Annmarie Drugonis speaking in response to the grant.
“We are excited about the development of the Kinneytown section of the Naugatuck River Greenway Trail,” the press release quotes Cassetti as saying. “The trail is a significant step forward for Ansonia and the entire Naugatuck Valley.”
“The trail will enhance the connection between our communities and allow our residents to share and experience nature, increase visibility, and make our communities more walkable and inviting,” the release quotes Drugonis as saying.
Below is a 2022 map of the Naugatuck River Greenway, which NVCOG hopes to eventually make continuous from its northern end in Torrington, down to its southern end at the Derby-Shelton Bridge.
The Derby section of the Greenway was the second-most walked trail in the state in 2023, according to the University of Connecticut’s CT Trails Census. It was about 719 times per day, or about 262,000 times over the entire year.
A tentative map of the 44-mile Greenway from 2022.
