Report: Water Withdrawals Threaten Connecticut Streams

WASHINGTON, D.C. — As the Connecticut legislature prepares for its upcoming session, Trout Unlimited issued a report that highlights a topic high on the legislative agenda: depletion of state water resources.

“We have always taken our free-flowing streams and rivers for granted,” said James Belden, president of Trout Unlimited’s Candlewood Valley chapter and a resident of Newtown. “But this new report makes clear that we need to take serious steps now to make sure our coldwater streams and rivers are not dewatered.”

Trout Unlimited’s new report, “A Glass Half Full: The Future of Water in New England,” highlights the growing problem of water withdrawals throughout the region. As the population grows and expands beyond its urban centers, that development places new and significant pressures on small headwater streams.

“We’ve seen the Fenton River literally dry up during the hot summer months,” said Mr Belden. “And even though that may be the most dramatic example, hundreds of streams in the state regularly experience low flows — that’s bad news for the fisheries, as well as the communities that enjoy the benefits of those streams and rely on them for drinking water.”

Connecticut’s water delivery system was established in the mid-1800s, when water supplies were plentiful and industrial users in New Haven, Bridgeport, and other urban centers monopolized water demand. Since then, the state has experienced a spider web pattern of population growth and development away from the places that the state’s water supply system originally was intended to serve.

“The state is not seeing a bunch of new reservoirs,” explained Kirt Mayland, director of Trout Unlimited’s Eastern Water Project. “So these communities and private landowners increasingly take water from the ground — water that otherwise would make its way into streams. And these small streams just can’t handle that kind of pressure.”

The new report includes a set of specific policy recommendations intended to provide guidance for state laws and policies governing withdrawals, water use, and streamflow requirements.

The full report is available at www.tu.org/easternwater.