Volunteers Roll Up Their

Sleeves To Restore Deep Brook

By Kendra Bobowick

Sometimes conservation means getting your hands dirty, or many hands, as volunteers worked in the soil and muddy riverbanks along Deep Brook May 5.

As Trout Unlimited Candlewood Valley chapter members and volunteers put to work funds from an Embrace-A-Stream grant slated for bank restoration, Saturday’s bustle of volunteers planting native species and grasses beside the Class I trout stream accomplish another goal.

“It’s a continuation of the Embrace-A-Stream and part of an overall Deep Brook project,” said TU chapter President James Belden.

Speaking long-term, he said, “We’re trying to fix the abuses of old and protect anything new,” Mr Belden said. He wants to protect the stream in its entirety from storm water management to restoring riparian buffers — or riverbanks where the land meets the water’s surface.

Saturday’s site work at the end of Commerce Road was across a deserted field — a place once home to industrial activity. As Mr Belden has explained in the past, the cleared land became overgrown with invasive species that can factor in to bank erosion. Portions of grant funds have already been applied to the site, which will require additional maintenance work in the future.

“We’re going to repair the banks so the stream can be more healthy,” he said. Again referring to his long-term goals for Deep Brook, he said he wants to be sure the brook can “sustain any future development.”

A tech park proposing several buildings along with roadways and parking lots is in preliminary design phases, and will be located along Deep Brook.

Since 2004, more than 1,400 trees and shrubs have been planted along the banks. Another portion of Deep Brook, which runs through Dickinson Park, is also a current target for restoration work. Deep Brook is one of only nine Class I trout management areas in the state. A Class I trout management area is a place abundant with wild trout, requires no stocking, and is classified as catch-and-release only.