Date: Fri 08-May-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: SUZANN

Quick Words:

Diane-Worden-conservation

Full Text:

On A Mission To Buffer Sensitive Ecosystems

(with photo)

BY SUZANNA NYBERG

The meetings, hearings, and field trips seem like a lot of work. For Diane

Worden, however, the rigorous schedule is all part of what she sees as her

calling: the protection of sensitive ecological areas.

Mrs Worden, who has lived in Newtown for the past 11 years, has sought to

raise the public consciousness on important environmental issues as the

program coordinator at the Westport Nature Center, bringing her expertise and

knowledge on environmental issues to bear wherever she believes it will do the

most good.

Consequently, she recently found herself in front of the Trumbull Inland

Wetlands Commission, arguing the importance of vegetative buffer zones -- an

issue she said is germane to any town that is serious about protecting its

natural resources.

In January, the town of Trumbull removed 320 feet of vegetation surrounding

Pond 5 at Twin Brooks Park's entrance; two hearings have been held and a

resolution to restore partially the buffer zones has been reached.

"If there is natural vegetation there, it should be retained," Mrs Worden

said. "Trails can be designed away from streamside buffers." According to Mrs

Worden, the geese pollution and consequent health problems in Twin Brooks did

not exist before the aggressive removal of water-edge buffers.

Mrs Worden said buffer zones are essential to the maintenance of an ecosystem;

tall grasses and underbrush along waterways create habitat protection for both

large and small animals. Birds, including Mrs Worden's favorite bird, the

kingfisher, depend on buffer zones to nest, breed, and feed. If the kingfisher

can no longer nest and breed in a buffer zone, then she will not fly and drop

straight into the water to feed. "I love diving birds," Mrs Worden said. "It's

not an easy way to obtain food. I would deeply miss the kingfisher."

Mrs Worden would also miss the river otter, another creature affected by loss

of buffer zones. "River otters are an indication that the quality of water is

good," she said. "A lack of otters indicates that something is going wrong."

Yet kingfishers and river otters are not the only ones who depend on buffer

zones. Fish, too, rely on the overhanging branches and roots of a buffer zone

for a supply of insects, caterpillars, and small microorganisms. Buffer zones

also protect against soil erosion, as they allow root systems to hold the soil

in place.

Eliminating buffer zones can have disastrous consequences for a waterway, Mrs

Worden noted. "A lack of these zones increases pollution and runoff during

rainstorms and floods," she said.

Still, it is the animals who suffer the most. Wildlife need a vegetative area,

Mrs Worden asserts, an area on the edge of fields, forests and waterways where

they can feed. "If there is nothing but grass leading up to trees, if there is

no edge of natural growth, then the wildlife that can use the habitat will be

minimal," she said.

Mrs Worden understands that what might please humans does not benefit all

those who are not human. Yet mowing and manicuring vegetative zones, tampering

with a fragile ecosystem, have wide-ranging consequences that affect even

human life. A lack of buffers attracts Canada Geese, with the attendant risk

to human health. Mosquitoes become rampant when there are no dragon-flies to

consume them. If a vegetative zone is gone, humans, too, suffer.

Reconfigure The Landscape

Mrs Worden would like to reconfigure traditional landscape design to

incorporate more of that which came before human intervention. "Instead of

buying over-cultivated plants that are disease prone and desperate for water,

we need to look at native plants that rebuild soil and attract wildlife," she

said.

Mrs Worden encourages not only municipalities, but homeowners, to revegetate

the land to attract wildlife. "Generally, animals do not pose a danger," she

said. Coyotes are wary of humans and will only harm a pet when natural food

found in vegetative buffer zones is not available. Foxes harm no one and can

rarely be seen during the day.

Largely self-taught, Mrs Worden has worked at the Westport Nature Center for

15 years, leading hikes and supervising canoe trips, and working with other

conservation groups, such as the Land Conservation Coalition of Connecticut

and the Saugatuck Valley Audubon Society. She loves to walk.

"Walking allows me to be surrounded by nature in a way that I was not when I

was growing up," said the Long Island native as she remembered her densely

zoned hometown. "There is a greater variety of flora and fauna up here.

Levittown lacked this variety."

Walking also enables Mrs Worden to read the landscape, gauging its changes and

recording its shifts, understanding what came before and what might be to

come. Her husband, Joshua Lamhut, appreciates the land and the wildlife as she

does. "I wouldn't have married him if he had been any different," she said.

Unless the state's remaining open space is aggressively pursued and preserved,

Mrs Worden predicts that the future will be bleak. Land conservation, she

says, must focus on preserving large sites, not scattered tracts. Wildlife

need a large, contiguous habitat, not an acre or two here and there to thrive.

Mrs Worden notes that in this part of the state, the issue of open space is

linked with the property rights of water companies. These companies control

much of the land that is part of the state's open-space system.

Of particular concern to the conservationist is the fate of more than 740

acres of undeveloped land in Easton. National Fairways, Inc, hopes to turn

Trout Brook Valley, the largest single tract of available undeveloped land in

southwestern Connecticut, into a golf course and to sell lots to another

developer to build luxury homes.

Mrs Worden frequently leads hiking trips to Trout Brook Valley, one of her

favorite areas in the state. "Its terrain is more interesting than that

farther south," she said. "This is rugged nature, with sudden drop-offs into

verdant valleys and streams." Like others not convinced that a golf course

would be the best way to use the land, she and her staff at the nature center

have been working to raise public awareness. Those seeking to learn more about

the issue can write to the Aspetuck Land Trust, PO Box 444, Westport, Conn.

06880 or call the Coalition to Preserve Trout Brook Valley at 459-9583.