Environmental Group Organizes To Protect Pootatuck Watershed

By Andrew Gorosko

A new private, nonprofit environmental group organized to protect the Pootatuck River Watershed is planning an introductory public meeting at which group members will explain their organization to residents.

The Pootatuck Watershed Association, Inc, (PWA) plans the event for Tuesday, May 9, from 5 to 7 pm, in the Alexandria Room at Edmond Town Hall, 45 Main Street, said PWA President James Belden.

Through its protection efforts, the group seeks to ensure that the town has a clean, abundant water supply for the future. The organization recently mailed a brochure to all the postal addresses in town describing its activities.

“This event is an opportunity for people to hear what the PWA is about, why they should be concerned about Newtown’s water, and what they can do to help secure Newtown’s quality of life and environment,” Mr Belden said.

“There will be displays and… information on many subjects, including our work in the schools, environmental studies and data, and how homeowners can reduce negative impacts on the local environment and our water quality,” he said.

The PWA lists several objectives that it will pursue toward the goal of watershed protection.

The group especially wants to ensure that there is a local clean, safe and abundant source of drinking water in the future. It wants to create a public forum for discussion of the scientific, educational, administrative and financial aspects of watershed management. The PWA seeks to assist local organizations in their efforts to protect and restore watersheds. The group also seeks the protection of aquatic and wildlife habitats.

The PWA plans to start a membership and fundraising drive for its activities.

The PWA would function like a smaller version of the Housatonic Valley Association (HVA). The HVA, which was founded in 1941, is a private, nonprofit group that works to protect the natural character and environmental quality of communities in the 1,948-square-mile tri-state Housatonic River Watershed. The 150-mile-long Housatonic River Watershed extends southward from the Berkshires in Massachusetts to Long Island Sound.

Unlike the HVA, which functions in an area holding 83 municipalities, the Pootatuck River Watershed is almost entirely located in Newtown, with a small section of the watershed in Monroe. The 26-square-mile Pootatuck River Watershed lies within the larger Housatonic River Watershed.

The Pootatuck River Watershed collects rainwater falling across a broad swath of central Newtown, channeling that drainage both eastward and westward, and then eventually northward into the main trunk of the Pootatuck River near Sandy Hook Center.

The combined flow of the river system is detained in two old millponds behind dams in Rocky Glen. The northward-flowing river then deposits its water and its sediment load at a delta at its confluence with the larger Housatonic River, near Silver Bridge.

The Pootatuck River’s watershed covers approximately 40 percent of the town’s 60-square-mile area. The watershed’s easternmost point lies near the intersection of Route 34 and Gray’s Plain Road. The watershed’s westernmost point lies near the intersection of Birch Hill Road and Cannon Drive.

Within the roughly diamond-shaped watershed lies the Pootatuck aquifer, the subterranean source of two public water supplies, one of which supplies United Water’s central public water system, and the other which provides drinking water for Fairfield Hills and adjacent properties.

The area where the tributary Deep Brook joins the Pootatuck River is a state-regulated wild trout management area, where brook trout reproduce naturally. It is one of only eight such areas in the state, where anglers fish for over-wintering native trout. That area has catch-and-release fishing, in which anglers must return caught trout to the water.