Bringing The Stream Back To Dickinson

By Kendra Bobowick

Residents may be able to enjoy a stream running through Dickinson Park and joining Deep Brook by the end of this summer.

On May 14, the Board of Finance unanimously approved $336,000, which will be funded by the pass-through grant from Candlewood Valley Trout Unlimited (TU) and the US Department of Agriculture. The grant total is $252,000, with the balance being a matching contribution from the town.

That $84,000 will be in labor and existing materials furnished by the town to complete work on the project.

As stated in a letter to the finance board from Land Use Director George Benson, “The project will restore the natural stream channel at the location of the old swimming pool area … The project will restore habitat for fish and wildlife and improve the long-term water quality of Deep Brook.”

The letter also indicates that the project will enable education and recreational activities and “enhance aesthetics of Dickinson Park.”

The stream restoration project is sponsored by the town, TU and the US Department of Agriculture, Natural Resource Conservation Services.

Water flow coming from a nearby swamp along Point O Rocks Road, bordering the southern end of Dickinson Park once trickled naturally and above ground through the field and fed Deep Brook, which cuts through Dickinson.

The stream was piped in the 1950s when the town built Dickinson Pool. In March 2006 the town filled in the pool, and since then officials have made plans to resurface the stream and reestablish its flow in the sunshine.

“We are trying to restore it to its natural state and how it should be,” said Assistant Director of Parks Carl Samuelson, who also said he hopes to put the project to bid “this coming week,” he said.

The stream and area will be “naturalized” and run from the swamp on Point O Rocks Road and under a newly built bridge, then along the slope where it will outlet into Deep Brook. The resurfaced stream will flow into Deep Brook roughly where it does now, near the skate park entrance.

“We will be planting trees; this will be aesthetic,” Mr Samuelson said. Plantings will create shade “to be sure the stream is not putting warmer water into Deep Brook.”

The project, delayed in past years, “needs to happen this summer,” Mr Samuelson said. “We are trying to do this during the low flow time of the year, midsummer.”

No town funds are being spent on the project.