Edgewood Park’s Phragmites’ Days Numbered

Almost an acre of tall, frondy invasives will be destroyed as part of a plan to restore and enhance the habitat around Edgewood Park’s beloved duck pond. Some neighbors asked if the cure is worse than the sickness.

The cure, death by herbicide, and the sickness — phragmites strangling out native plants — were weighed in a neighborhood meeting last week.

Twenty people, including many members of the Friends of Edgewood Park, gathered at the ranger station in the park Thursday night to discuss the Duck Pond portion of a larger plan to dramatically change the ecosystem of the West River, which flows into the pond.

The state plans to install self-regulating tidal gates beginning next summer or fall where the West River meets the harbor, letting a mix of salt and fresh water flow in and out of the river. That will bring more water into the pond, making the area around the pond wetter, necessitating some changes, according to two staffers from Milone and MacBroom. The firm was hired by Connecticut Fund for the Environment (CFE) from a $225,000 grant for the pond project that came from federal stimulus dollars.

To proponents, the plan will restore the West River and the duck pond to their more natural, thriving state from a century past.

Landscape architect Michael Doherty (pictured) explained that the pond’s light green area will flood twice a day, coinciding with high tide. So the plan is to create an elevated berm around the lawn to raise it above flood stage. The soccer field will be protected, and visitors to the pond will continue to have direct access to it. Plans also call for installation of a canoe/kayak launch at one end.

Next, wetlands scientist Matt Sanford, said the plan is ​“to enhance the habitat, not degrade it.” To that end, CFE is planning to contract with the state Department of Environmental Protection to rid one end of the pond of phragmites by spraying with an herbicide next fall and replace them with low-growing, colorful native species that won’t obscure the view of the pond.

“What’s the herbicide?” someone asked.

“Is it safe for children?” asked Keren Kurti Alexander, who attended the meeting with her infant son sleeping by her side.

Gwen Macdonald, CFE’s habitat restoration director, replied that it’s called Habitat Herbicide, which is non-toxic to aquatic life and to humans, and breaks down in sunlight in six hours or less. She said it’s been certified for use by the Environmental Protection Agency, and is a commonly used herbicide.

A woman in the audience asked, ​“When you say ​‘breaks down,’ do you mean it disappears, or that it breaks down into its component parts?” The answer was the latter, and her follow-up question was, ​“What are the component parts? We should know more,” she said, ​“because the state of aquifers in Connecticut is poor.”

Donna Hall, a City Plan Department staffer and Westville neighbor, questioned how well-vetted the chemical is.

“From everything I’ve read, the EPA does not require testing to prove that [chemicals in use] are safe for humans,” Hall said. ​“I’m not saying they’re dangerous. I’m just saying I don’t think it should be represented that they’re safe.”

MacDonald said testing is done on several species, including human toxicity testing for any licensed chemical.

The herbicide is applied with a sticking agent. ​“What’s in the sticking agent?” an audience member asked.

CFE’s Curt Johnson took down all the questions and promised to get back to people.

“Can you dig the plants up instead of poisoning them?” John Fitzpatrick (pictured) asked. Sanford said that would be prohibitively expensive. Fitzpatrick also asked if the proposed plan would bring changes he didn’t want, like turning the pond eventually into a marsh.

“You are asking us to risk something we value” in order to improve habitat down-river, around West River Memorial Park, he said.

Johnson then told a story of how his grandfather lived near the pond a century ago and was able to catch a two-foot-plus shad there. Diversity has dropped ever since the current tide gates were installed decades ago, which prevent any movement of water or species upriver.

“These are the kinds of riches that can occur to this whole river system,” he said. ​“It’s restoring something back to a time we don’t remember.” He added that the park is a managed area, and that the Friends group could help maintain it, so the pond doesn’t revert to marsh. He quoted Ron Rosa, who Johnson said is considered the father of habitat restoration in the state. ​“He thinks this [entire West River] project is the best habitat restoration project in any urban area from Virginia to Maine.”

Johnson said CFE sought to get input from neighbors ​“to make sure the design makes sense.”

The project needs permits from City Plan, the Board of Aldermen, the DEP, and the Army Corps of Engineers. The plan is to begin the work in the spring or summer of 2011 and finish it in 2012.