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Second of Three Fish Ladders Wins Approval in Centerbrook

For more than two centuries, man-made dams on the Falls River defined Centerbrook’s economy and still define the landscape. What the dams have also done is block the annual migration of native fish like alewives, blueback herring, and shad that previously used the river as a breeding ground. A series of fish ladders that allow the fish to bypass the dams is bringing the fish back, though not everyone is pleased with the process.

The Nature Conservancy has already installed a fish ladder for the dam off of Dennison Road and next up is a bypass for the dam at 33 Deep River Road (just north of the Route 154 and Main Street intersection).

The application described the project as “the construction of a fishway at the Dolan Pond dam on the Falls River. The dam will be notched to allow the installment of a...fish ladder set within a walled enclosure upstream of the dam allowing fish passage upstream.”

Construction will be completed over a two-week period this summer.

While restoring native fish is generally seen as a positive and Essex First Selectman Norm Needleman characterized the fish ladders as “really a net positive for the area,” one of this latest project’s neighbors said she was told of the proposal too late to raise her concerns, which she said will lower her property value.

The Inland Wetlands & Watercourses Commission acted on the Nature Conservancy application at its April 10 meeting after receiving the proposal on Feb. 13. Abutters of the proposed installation site were to be notified of the meeting on the application in advance, but Adele Saykin, one of the abutters living on Old Deep River Road, said she did not receive the letter in the mail until a day later, April 11. She is concerned that her voice wasn’t fairly heard when the application was being considered.

“It destroys the view, which may devalue my property,” Saykin said. Had she been aware of the meeting, she would have told the commission she objects because “it may cause flooding, that’s my concern.”

Essex First Selectman Norman Needleman said the commission mailed Saykin’s notice one week prior to the meeting and that others whose notices were mailed at the same time received their letters as expected. Needleman also noted that “flooding is absolutely not a concern” in regard to this project, which is the second of three planned for the river.

The application was unanimously approved, subject to conditions, at the April 10 meeting.