Rebuilt Fort Hale Pier Opens

Seven years after Hurricane Sandy destroyed a popular East Shore fishing pier, city and state officials celebrated the grand reopening of a reconstructed pier that includes new amenities for fishing and recreation, and that is structurally resilient enough to withstand higher sea levels and more frequent storms in an era of manmade climate change.

Mayor Toni Harp and Governor Dannel Malloy joined a half dozen local and state officials at the celebration Monday morning under a cloudless blue sky alongside the Long Island Sound in Fort Nathan Hale Park to announce the official opening of the new Fort Hale Pier.

Battered by Hurricane Gloria in 1985 and Hurricane Irene in 2011, the old Fort Hale Pier was destroyed by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. In July 2015, a collaboration of local and state officials, led by New Haven State Senator Martin Looney, convinced the state to relinquish its ownership of the pier to New Haven and to commit to bonding $1.8 million in state funds for the pier’s reconstruction.

The six-month reconstruction project spanned October 2017 to April 2018, and the pier has been open for public use since April 13.

During Monday morning’s sunshine-suffused ribbon cutting, Looney recalled how much time he had spent with his children and grandchildren at the pier over the decades.

“I began taking my son here in 1982 when he was 6,” he said. ​“Then we lost a few years in fishing after the pier was severely damaged in Hurricane Gloria in 1985, then [we came] back again once it was restored. And then in 2008 when my grandson was 6, we began taking him here with us as well. But since 2011 we haven’t been able to do that. We look forward once again [to fishing] on this site.”

“This is the kind of thing that helps make communities whole,” he continued. ​“That gives them a sense of pride, a sense of connection.”

The new pier is 360 feet long, 10 feet longer than its predecessor. The neck is 12 feet wide, whereas the previous pier’s neck was 16 feet wide, and the length of the pier is capped by a 140-foot wide ​“T” head, which has a 16-foot-wide walking area and includes a 39-foot wide octagon at one corner.

The wooden railing stretching up and down the length of the pier includes little notches designed to hold fishing rods in place so that people can rest their hands after casting a line. The pier also includes waist-high plastic stations meant for washing and cleaning the day’s catch.

Parks Ranger Dan Barvir praised the pier’s new amenities as allowing for easier fishing access for the youth and senior fishing classes he plans on hosting on the pier this summer.

As he baited a line on Monday morning to test the waters for the striped bass, winter flounder, summer flounder and blackfish that populate the aquatic area, he said that the octagon at the head of the pier offers a much better configuration than the previous, straight peer did for gathering and teaching small groups how to fish.

“Apparently every single person who grew up in New Haven has gone fishing here,” said Laura Cahn, the chair of the city’s Environmental Advisory Council. She said that she was encouraged by this project’s contribution to the beautification of New Haven’s shoreline, and by the city’s and the state’s commitment to protecting New Haven’s coast from rampant commercial development.

Environmentally Resilient Infrastructure

Governor Malloy and U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal also used the pier’s reopening as an opportunity to promote environmental policies at the local and state levels, and to bash President Trump’s administration for playing fast and loose with environmental regulations at the national level.

Malloy said he was old enough to remember the first Earth Day celebrations in 1970, and recalled how environmental activists succeeded in getting communities throughout the country to care about protecting the environment from such degradations as water pollution and non-degradable garbage.

“Earth Day and activists changed our attitude about the environment,” he said. ​“But we have to remain diligent even as people in Washington try to dissuade us from doing those things. The reality is this pier had to be at a different design because the water levels are rising and that’s happening as a result of climate change. Although Republicans are not allowed to say it in Washington, climate change is manmade. We’re doing it to ourselves. And it’s going to be a tough situation to reverse.”

Malloy and Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) Commissioner Rob Klee alluded to legislation the governor’s administration and Senator Looney have collaborated on to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45 percent from a 2001 baseline by 2030 and to Connecticut’s coastal boundary maps to reflect a two-foot rise in sea level by 2050.

Senator Blumenthal called on President Trump to look to New Haven as an example of how city and state officials can work together to protect against the effects of climate change.

“If you want to see what leadership looks like,” he said. ​“Come here to New Haven. If you want to see what environmental leadership looks like, come to this pier.”

Blumethal said that this type of environmentally resilient and responsible infrastructure development needs to happen throughout the country, but that the president has so far only offered words and not action.

“This administration has relied on magical thinking when it comes to infrastructure,” he continued. ​“No action. Donald Trump ought to come here and see this pier and what can be done when citizen activism and the state and local leaders come together and decide to get things done.”

City Engineer Giovanni Zinn said that the new pier abides by construction standards that are simply a lot higher than when the previous pier was built some 50 years ago.

He said the city and its contractor contemplated using steel or concrete for the pier, but settled on wood because it is a naturally resilient material, is less expensive on a per-unit basis, and is immune to the corrosion, pitting and rusting.

“It’s extremely strong,” Zinn said, praising the strength of the substructure of the pier as being able to withstand rising tides, fiercer waves, and more frequent storms. He said the wire railing will also allow water to pass through more easily during a flood, and therefore put less pressure on the railing.

City Parks Director Rebecca Bombero said that phase two of the pier’s reconstruction will take the remaining state funds left over from the $1.8 million bonded for the pier to add benches, security cameras, a gate, and a water line to the pier that will allow for the washing and cleaning of fish. She said phase two will also cover the repaving of the park’s parking lot.

Bombero said the phase two improvements to the pier should be complete by the end of this year’s fishing season in August.

Click on the Facebook Live video below to watch a recording of the opening ceremony.