Public Weighs In On River Plan

The Town of Canton held a public meeting Thursday night to discuss a draft of the "Upper Collinsville Mill Pond Master Plan." Twenty two Canton citizens attended to hear a presentation outlining the plan and air any suggestions or questions they had concerning the changes suggested for the impoundment and its surrounding areas.

The presentation and questions were handled by David Murphy and James MacBroom of Milone and MacBroom, Inc., the Cheshire-based consultation firm that had drafted the plan and gathered the data required to construct it. Also present was Canton town project administrator Jeff Shea, who fielded additional questions raised at the meeting. The $100,000 grant for the master plan was provided by the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and was part of a $758,905 total in grant money acquired in court settlements for violations of clean water laws, according to Murphy.

The body of water and surrounding shore being examined by the master plan is an impoundment in the Farmington River running from Route 179 upstream to Town Bridge Road, according to the text of the master plan. According to Shea, it acquired its designation of Mill Pond about ten years ago in the process of securing a permit for the potential Collinsville hydroelectric project.

According to Murphy, the overall goal of the master plan and the renovations it proposes would be to enhance opportunities for public access on public land without causing overuse of the area. This would be accomplished by improving the recreational, aesthetic, economic, historical, and ecological aspects of the impoundment, the means of which were determined by professional inspections and surveys of local citizens.

According to MacBroom, between eight and ten water resource management and landscape architecture specialists working for Milone and Macbroom handled such things as sediment sampling and shoreline surveys together at any one time. Murphy said that recreational surveys were conducted since mid-March, both through on-site observations of the area and through online services such as SurveyMonkey.

“We’ve hear loud and clear from the survey that people like [the river] the way it is.  We don’t want everyone in the state to be here, and we get that,” Murphy said, emphasizing that any changes made to make the area more accessible to kayakers and hikers would make sure they stayed on public land.

Two focus areas of the master plan are the current site of the town garage and the wetlands near 45 Bridge St. Murphy said that relocating the town garage would create a convenient launch area for car-top boats and take some pressure off of Collinsville Canoe and Kayak, as well as create a space for modular public restrooms. Opening up access to the wetlands, meanwhile, would create an accessible fishing area and fish habitat.

“The idea is not to create a very, very busy access way, but to really take some of the pressures off of other points that are already accommodated for,” Murphy said. “The end result wouldn’t be to have twice as many kayaks on the pond… it would take pressure off of other areas.”

Another major goal would be rendering the impoundment a uniform five feet  deep at all points, which would be accomplished by either raising the water surface with stop logs and rubber dams, or removing sediment from the bottom of the river, thus reducing the size of the islands dotting the water and enhancing kayak passage.

Concerns raised by the audience covered what any dredging up the sediment could mean for the environment and economy to complaints about the plan only making it easier for tourists to trespass on private property.

George Redford of Collinsville was concerned about whether or not the plan had addressed the notion that the impoundment and its shoreline could face overuse, an issue that MacBroom promised to look into.  Town selectman Stephen Roberto, who sat in as part of the audience, asked and was told that any dredging would be done via “hydraulic dredging,” which would result in sediment being deposited on public land.

Guerry and Terese Dotson raised concerns that part of the land the plan covered appeared to overlap with their own property and that they had already faced issues with trespassing and vandalism given their property’s proximity to the river and surrounding trails.

“It may not be a big deal from your kitchen or from your couch or while you’re sitting in your backyard, but this is my backyard.  I bought my open space, I bought my hunting grounds, I bought my private property,” Guerry Dotson said.  “I don’t walk in your back yard; don’t walk in mine.”

Shea said that there are currently no plans to implement the master plan and no further public meetings about it, but that the draft will have to be finalized within the next two weeks. The final draft is then set to be delivered to the DEEP on Nov. 22.  In the meantime, Shea and Murphy will be available to receive comments until Nov. 4.

Project Center Web Site

Steering Committe Information