David Sepulveda Photo
Young Westvillian Eva Heitmann helped plant blue iris.
She raised her eyes from her labors when someone called out, “It looks like planting rice in Southeast Asia!” But Stephanie FitzGerald knew very well where she was: Staking holes in the mud to insert Joe-Pye weed and other shallow water plants in the newly marshy meadow of the restored Edgewood Park Duck Pond.
The tides aren’t going in quite yet, but the plants are.
That was the outcome of an event Saturday celebrating the completion of a tidal restoration project.
Dubbed “Planting Day,” the event also saw FitzGerald and other Friends of Edgewood Park gamely troop down to the pond in their floppy hats, rubber boots, and waders.
Waiting for them at the water’s edge were boxes of canvas gloves and trowels, long sticks and mallets. It was not to be your average gardening day among the early spring vegetables.
Allan Appel Photo
FitzGerald and Save the Sound volunteer and recent UNH enviro science grad Kara Villone plant Joe-Pye weed and bone set.
The volunteers’ marine horticultural challenge: to begin the planting of — count them! — 6,800 shallow marsh plants like sweet flag, arrow arum, bone set, and blue iris, eight varieties in total and all native to the West River tidal marsh area.
They will hold the sediment, filter the water, and attract bird, butterfly, and fish species in the newly evolving marshy acre northeast of the pond’s recently constructed raised walkway, said Save the Sound’s Gwen Macdonald, who has coordinated the habitat restoration.
The planting followed celebratory remarks at the ranger station by no fewer than nine officials. “Your community has rallied to restore this river because you know there’s a relationship between healthy eco-systems and healthy [human] communities,” said Acting Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Conservation and for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Eric Schwabb.
Other speakers praised the partnerships that have brought to near completion not only a reconstructed pond, but also replacement of old tide gates across the West River, and the resulting restoration of extensive wetland, most of it in West River Memorial Park.
It’s “near completion” because the two-way gates themselves, allowing natural tidal flow for the first time in nearly a century, are not yet in place and operational.
The brimming pond and two-foot-deep planting area Saturday morning were the result of rains, Macdonald said.
Click here for details of the restoration and new features of the duck pond and here for a story on the larger West River Tidal Marsh Restoration Project. Several speakers termed it, at 82 acres and $1.6 million, the largest urban tidal restoration initiative in New England.
Cochran and Youngs. Young’s students at the Barnard Environmental Studies Magnet Shool are testing heavy metals present in worms pre-and-post tidal restoration.
Volunteers Frank Cochran and Kel Youngs (pictured) worked in the “deeper water” with the blue iris. One member of the team was designated a poker or stake driver, using a pointed stick to make a hole in the mud; the other was the planter. There was lots to do as the iris came about 45 individual plants to a box.
The pokers and planters were instructed by wetland scientist Matt Sanford to insert the plants one foot apart and staggered, “not straight like soldiers.” Groups of six to 12 plants of one variety were planted next to another variety, because the clustering is important to promote bird, butterfly, and fish activity.
Chris Heitmann’s dog Cleo helped with the hole digging.
Meanwhile, back closer to where the water washed onto the wet land, more Joe-Pye and boneset were being planted because these varieties like to keep their heads above water, that is, to be saturated but not inundated.
When the pond waters recede, these same varieties will be planted along the margins of the pond proper.
Before the speeches and the planting, West River activist Jerry Poole showed U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (pictured) a Register article from Novembe, 1999. In it she was reported as celebrating getting $500,000 toward the restoration of Edgewood Park. “We’re fulfilling it today. We’re getting there,” Poole said.
Nearly all the $1.6 million are federal “stimulus” dollars. Save the Sound, a program of Connecticut Fund for the Environment, organized the event and coordinated the work. While the city did not give cash, Save the Sound Director of Finance John Champion said the parks department provided lots of labor, as well as the guidance and long “historical memory” provided in particular by City Engineer Dick Miller, on work that was planned more than a decade ago.
Gwen Macdonald said that the pipes and other infrastructure for the tidal gates are in place within the old structure. The three self-regulating new tide gates themselves will be installed next week.