FORESTS IN CONNECTICUT
ALT the most wonderful walking spot (dogs welcome).
Saugatuck Reservoir looking south
to Weston (photo by Joan Lewis). Marking the BHC's trail
(plans done in late '80's)
TROUT BROOK VALLEY CONSERVATION
AREA TRAIL MAP
A DOZEN OF THE ASPETUCK LAND
TRUST'S
WESTON PRESERVES - WALK MAPS, CLICK HERE
NEWS: It never gets old - TROUT BROOK VALLEY
IS A MUST-WALK THIS SUMMER!!! Numero uno walk, in my
opinion! Woof!!!
Trouble at Trout Brook: What to do
when dogs, bikes and nature collide
Weston FORUM
Written by David Brant, Aspetuck Land Trust
Monday, 14 June 2010 00:00
Trout Brook Valley provides its visitors with tranquil vistas,
challenging trails, seasonal beauty and abundant nature experiences.
The Aspetuck Land Trust, which owns and manages Trout Brook Valley, has
welcomed dogs and mountain bikers and the general public — whether
members or not — into this open space preserve since its acquisition
more than 10 years ago.
Consistent with the land trust’s mission of environmental conservation
and preservation, policies have been put into place over the past
couple of years to facilitate usage by these groups. Unfortunately,
repeated disregard of and non-compliance with these rules may endanger
future privileges for both bikers and dogs.
Aspetuck Land Trust owns and maintains 42 trailed nature preserves on
more than 1,700 acres of open space in Weston, Easton, Westport, and
Fairfield. Among these, Trout Brook Valley is considered a crown jewel.
Acquired in 1999 with a combination of private and public funding, it
is contiguous to the Crow Hill and Jump Hill preserves. Together these
three preserves comprise more than 1,000 acres and provide almost 21
miles of trails.
One of eight Connecticut “Class A” native brook trout streams runs
through Trout Brook Valley, the preserves’ woods are home to beautiful
wildflowers and rare native plants, and their trees and marshes provide
nesting areas for many varieties of birds, including important hawk
habitat in the orchard. Preserving and maintaining these natural
resources while providing access to growing numbers of visitors is
challenging and requires cooperation.
Within the Conservation Area of Trout Brook Valley, Crow Hill and Jump
Hill, mountain bikers are given access to ride trails designed for
biking from May 1 to Dec. 31 of each year. Mountain bikers are
permitted to ride on 15.2 miles, or 73% of the total trail miles in the
conservation area.
The land trust asks that bikers avoid riding on muddy trails. No off
trail riding is allowed.
Despite these limited restrictions, mountain bikers have been riding in
the preserve during closed winter months, frequenting closed trails,
and riding off trail. Additionally, signs indicating a recently closed
trail that was closed to bikers due to excessive run-off and wet
conditions while the trail is improved and rested have been removed.
Sometimes the land trust must close trails due to negative impacts from
both bikers and hikers. Aspetuck Land Trust’s first responsibility is
to be good stewards of the land.
Dog owners are asked to leash their dogs in the parking lots and
to/from the indicated release points. They are also expected to have
their dogs within sight and under control, to carry a leash with them
at all times, and to leash their dogs when horses are on the trail or
when asked to by another hiker or dog owner.
Dogs are not allowed in areas of Trout Brook where trout spawning may
occur or in certain bird nesting areas. These areas are posted with
signs.
Some dog owners consistently disregard these policies, which raises
both safety and preservation concerns.
Although it is a minority of bikers and dog owners who ignore the few
requests made of them, the entire biking and dog owning community is at
risk for being increasingly restricted in their access to Trout Brook
Valley.
Aspetuck Land Trust is appealing to the public to obey the following
rules, which are clearly posted at the preserve:
• Mountain bikers are permitted access to bike designated trails only
from May 1 to Dec. 31.
• Off-trail riding and riding on muddy trails is prohibited.
• Dog owners must keep dogs on leash in parking lots and to and from
designated release points on the trail system.
• Dog owners must carry their leashes with them and leash dogs when
horses are on trails or when asked to do so by others
• Dogs are not allowed in posted areas of Trout Brook when trout are
spawning or in areas where certain birds are known to be nesting.
• Mountain bikers may not be accompanied by dogs.
If these rules are not followed, it may become necessary for the land
trust to implement stricter leashing regulations or, possibly, to
completely ban dogs and/or mountain bikes at the preserve. However,
with everyone’s help and cooperation, the land trust hopes to continue
to be able to accommodate a variety of users in the preserve for many
years to come.
To learn more about the Aspetuck Land Trust or to become a member,
visit www.aspetucklandtrust.org.
David Brant is the executive director
of Aspetuck Land Trust and may be reached at
dbrant@aspetucklandtrust.org This e-mail address is being protected
from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or 203-331-1906.
Saugatuck River becomes more fish-friendly, one dam at a time
CT POST
By John Burgeson, STAFF WRITER
Updated: 12/23/2009 07:42:58 PM EST
Just about every American has seen film clips of salmon leaping over
impossibly tall waterfalls.
But not all species of fish are as athletic as salmon. Most, in fact,
can't negotiate a knee-high dam.
This is a problem for fish trying to swim up the Saugatuck River, which
flows from Ridgefield to Westport's shoreline. Sally Harold, director
of the Nature Conservancy's Saugatuck River Watershed Project, said the
river has several major dams, most of them dating back to Colonial
times, and each makes life difficult for the blueback herring and
alewife heading upstream to spawn.
There are more than 100 small dams in the entire Saugatuck watershed,
which has more than 200 miles of tributaries that cover 56,000 acres in
11 communities in southwestern Connecticut.
"The colonists were particularly active in this watershed, building
dams," Harold said. "This was a problem, because the fish that frequent
this river aren't particularly big jumpers."
Ideally, she said, the dams should be removed, but property owners
along the river view them as historic, even though they degrade the
habitat. For example, she said, they boost water temperatures, making
the Saugatuck less attractive to fish.
"They see the dams as having a lot of historical value, but they forget
that there was a lot of history before the colonists arrived," she
said. "To this point, we haven't had one property owner on the
Saugatuck willing to pull out a dam."
The alternative is to construct fish ladders and other bypass devices.
One technique is to install a "pool and weir" system that consists of a
series of steps ---- each only a few inches tall ---- with pools in
between. In some places along the Saugatuck, electronic fish counters
have been installed to track the progress of the fish restoration
efforts.
Although the Saugatuck has been cleaned up since the 1960s, thanks to
stricter environmental laws, it's still viewed as a place where
homeowners can dump leaves, which is bad news for the stream
environment.
There's also the problem of lawn fertilizer runoff, which not only
degrades the river, but Long Island Sound as well, Harold said.
There are six major dams along the Saugatuck River, and five have fish
ways, according to the Nature Conservancy. The sixth, and most
northerly dam, at a place called Hasen Pond, doesn't, but the
conservancy hopes to rectify that in the coming years.
Harold said it's difficult to get permission to build a fish way.
Often, months and years of negotiations are wasted when riverside
property is sold, meaning that talks have to start at square one with
the new owners.
The Nature Conservancy will apply a portion of the $88,000 in grant
money that it recently received from the Long Island Sound Futures Fund
for the Hasen Pond project.
The Futures Fund grant was also used to construct a passageway for
mature eels heading downstream at the Aquarion Water Co.'s Hemlock
Reservoir water-treatment plant in Fairfield. This "eel siphon" was
also funded in part by Aquarion, company officials said.
If the Hasen Pond fish passage becomes a reality, it would mean that
three miles of stream habitat would be open to migratory fish. And the
farther fish can travel, the more fish will use the river, experts say.
"The dams do a lot to the river," Harold said. "There is a cumulative
impact -- one dam might not do a lot of damage, but all taken together,
they do have an effect. We know that many species, like brook trout,
are sensitive to the thermal effects from these dams."
State
DEP to host forum on 5-year plan for forests
DAY
Article
published Apr 18, 2010
The
state Department of Environmental Protection will host a forum on
Wednesday, April 28, to discuss ideas and recommendations for the
five-year Forest Resource Assessment and Strategy being prepared for
the state.
The forum will take place from 7 to 9 p.m. at DEP
headquarters at 79 Elm St., Hartford. The basis for
the forum will be the results of a series of roundtable discussions in
February and March.
The forest assessment is being done because a 2008 federal
farm bill requires each state to complete this work to receive U.S.
Forest Service funds.
A report on the roundtable discussions can be found at www.ct.gov/dep/forestry.
People can speak during the forum, or submit written
comments by May 15 to the Department of Environmental Protection
Division of Forestry; 79 Elm St., Hartford CT 06106. Comments can also
be submitted to dep.forestry@ct.gov.
Connecticut forest-land forum looks at
state's wooded assets: Diverse ownership, varied uses make
quantifying a challenge
The Day
By Judy Benson
Published 11/26/2009 12:00 AM
Updated 11/26/2009 02:10 AM
Storrs - With woodlands covering nearly 60 percent of this relatively
small state, Connecticut's forest resources are a vital part of the
state's economic, environmental, cultural and aesthetic resources.
But quantifying those assets, while potentially tricky, will provide
forest landowners, policymakers and state and local decision-makers
with an important tool that will help keep the state's forests as
forests. The task is made more complex by the fact that 80 percent of
the state's forest land is privately owned, divided among as many as
100,000 individuals and private institutions such as Yale University
and water companies.
Those messages, and current efforts under way to inventory and value
the state's forestland, were the main themes of a daylong forum at the
University of Connecticut Tuesday. Titled, "Connecticut Forests in a
Changing World - From Global to Local," the conference was sponsored by
the state Department of Environmental Protection, the Connecticut
Forest & Park Association and the UConn Cooperative Extension
System and College of Agriculture and Natural Resources.
David Kittredge, professor and extension forester at the University of
Massachusetts, began the day's presentations with an overview of the
place of Connecticut's forests in the global environment. Not only do
they help keep the state's air and water clean, stabilize soil and
provide local wildlife habitat, the state's forest can also be seen in
a global environmental context.
"When you practice forestry in Connecticut," he said, "it helps allow
for the preservation of primary forests elsewhere in the world."
Put another way, nurturing more sustainable tree farming in Connecticut
can help supply local markets for building materials, and in turn take
pressure off forests in places as far-flung as Siberia, so that forests
there can be better preserved as habitat for rare and endangered
species such as the Siberian tiger. At the same time, sustainable
timber harvest helps preserve Connecticut's forests, he said. He noted
that as a building material, wood products are very efficient,
requiring far less energy to get from source to market than other
materials such as steel and concrete.
Douglas Zehner, state conservationist for the Connecticut offices of
the Natural Resources Conservation Service, part of the U.S. Department
of Agriculture, outlined how the 2008 federal farm bill will affect
forestry in Connecticut. For the first time, forestland is eligible for
USDA grants for management, but only after the state completes a
first-ever statewide forest assessment, he said.
The assessment, which is required of all states and due in May, is
currently under way under the direction of Chris Martin, state forester
with the DEP. Once completed, it will rate the conditions and threats
facing various forest parcels, as well as the state's priorities for
better managing and preserving its forest resources. A series of
roundtable discussions will take place around the state early next year
to gather input from landowners and the public that will become part of
the strategy for conserving Connecticut's forest resources and
submitted to the USDA. The first of the roundtables took place during
Tuesday's conference.
Reaching all the owners of small forest parcels with messages about
good forest management, however, is a major challenge, Zehner said.
Further complicating the task, he said, is the fact that private owners
keep forests for many reasons that have little to do with their value
to the larger public. These reasons include privacy, personal enjoyment
of natural beauty, and investment and legacy value.
One incentive Zehner hopes will encourage more landowners to practice
forest management are federal grants now available through his office
to help landowners pay for forestry management plans.
Following Zehner's presentation, Kathleen Segerson, UConn economic
professor, described how the tangible and intangible values of a forest
might be assessed and quantified. The notion of trying to evaluate all
the benefits provided by a natural habitat, including many that are not
"priced" or part of any market, is a relatively new idea in
environmental economics, she said, and still evolving.
Consideration must be given to direct and indirect values of an
ecosystem and how those values would change if it were developed or
preserved, she said. Direct values would include products that could be
harvested from that ecosystem, plus water and air purification
functions, while indirect ones would include the contributions to a
region's culture and sense of place as well as spiritual and aesthetic
values.
How
did they miss Trout Brook? On
my list, it is numero uno (see photos above...)
The top five hikes in Fairfield County
Stamford ADVOCATE
By Thomas Ebersold
Posted: 07/17/2009 10:10:05 AM EDT
Updated: 07/17/2009 10:33:37 AM EDT
Best of lists are always subjective and this list is no exception, but
any of these hikes is sure to please an outdoors enthusiast.
Listed in alphabetical order, the top five best hikes in Fairfield
County are: Lillinonah Trail, Newtown; Pequonnock River Valley,
Trumbull; Saugatuck
Trail, Weston/Redding; Tarrywile Park, Danbury; and Webb Mountain
Park, Monroe.
Before heading out on your journey, remember that a key to enjoying any
hike is proper preparation. When going on any hike, be sure to have a
map of the area and know how to read it. Waterproof boots are also
recommended because most hiking areas have wet and muddy sections, and
wear wool or synthetic socks to reduce the likelihood of blisters.
Don't forget to carry enough water and food to last for the duration of
the hike, and take appropriate protection against ticks that may carry
Lyme disease...read more about the Saugatuck Trails system here.
This
is the first parcel in Weston that the Aspetuck Land Trust received -
and it is very quiet and peaceful.
Weston preserve offers honey
of a hike
Greenwich TIME
By Scott
Gargan, Special Correspondent
Article Launched: 08/21/2008
01:00:00 AM EDT
Editor's note: This is the latest in an occasional series on area
hiking venues.
Just two miles from Cannondale train station, on the northern part of
an egg-shaped hill, lies Honey Hill Preserve, a 38-acre open space park
that supports an array of diverse plant life within a relatively small
area. Owned by the Aspetuck Land Trust, the preserve features three
interconnecting loop trails with plants ranging from white pine to
several distinct species of fern.
Parking is scarce at the preserve entrance on Wampum Hill Road (just
two narrow spaces). If the spots are taken, park along Honey Hill Road
or the cul-de-sac at the end of Mayapple Road and head north to the
preserve entrance (found just over the Wilton border in Weston).
Walk along the shaded pathway that leads into the park and bear right
on the white trail (designated by a white arrow). Follow the path north
to the center of the park and pass the entrance to the salmon-colored
trail. On the left is a majestic white pine forest - its uniformity and
patterned structure offer a striking contrast to the diversity and
sporadic arrangement of the park's majority hardwoods.
After crossing through a four-way intersection, head north into the
park, while observing the scattered rocks and bright-green ferns that
blanket the landscape. Stay on the white trail as it loops around the
northeast section of the preserve and south to where it meets the red
trail (there are several unmarked trails that connect to private
properties). Try identifying the various hardwoods - including oaks,
maples, tulip, poplar and black birch - that populate the area.
Proceed left onto the red trail, built along a section of old farmland
at the foot of a steep slope. Along the beginning stretch, observe the
growth of vegetation on each side - on the right, abutting private
property and former farmland, there is scant regrowth; on the left,
there are large oak trees, suggesting unspoiled terrain. Walk along the
red trail and observe the ferns and trifoliate plants surrounded by
stone walls.
After the red trail loop, make a left to return to the white trail,
which curves sharply to the right before meeting the salmon-colored
trail. Proceed on that trail and turn right onto the yellow trail
heading west. The terrain, typical of Fairfield County uplands,
descends into a murky swamp that forms part of the headwaters of
Mayapple Brook (a tributary of the Norwalk River).
The yellow trail continues uphill and crosses into Wilton before
looping back around to an opening in a stone wall. Visitors can hang a
right on the yellow trail and return to the marshlands (leading back to
Wampum Hill Road) or enter one of the two unmarked trails that lead to
municipal-use property owned by the Town of Weston.
Follow the trail on the right along a steep ridge that features some
impressive rock formations on the left and sweeping views of the
surrounding area on the right (portion takes an extra 30 minutes).
Proceeding north, the trail eventually comes to rows of humming
electrical lines. A distant horn from a Danbury bound train car can be
heard echoing against the surrounding woodland.
*
location: Honey Hill Preserve
entrance: Wampum Hill Road, Weston; northwestern portion crosses into
Wilton
topography: Rocky, slightly hilly terrain
land area: 38 acres
duration of hike: Approximately 1.5 hours; short, easy hike ideal for
families
rules & regulations: Open daily during daylight hours; dogs are
allowed off leash; private property surrounding park restricted from
access; remain on marked trails
Conservation
easements; Tax incentives expire soon
Weston FORUM
Oct 8, 2007
Landowners
who are considering establishing conservation easements on some of
their land are advised to act before the end of the year in order to
qualify for increased federal tax incentives.
Bruce LePage, executive director of
Aspetuck Land Trust (ALT), announced that the law passed by Congress
last year approving a “tremendous expansion” of the federal tax
incentives for conservation easement donations expires on Dec. 31.
The new law, Mr. LePage explained,
“raises the deduction landowners receive for such donations from 30% of
their adjusted gross income to 50% and extends the carry forward period
for donors to take tax deductions for voluntary conservation easements
from six to 16 years. In addition, it allows qualifying farmers and
ranchers to deduct up to 100% of their income,” he added.
Mr. LePage warned, however, that the
increased tax incentives apply only to easements donated in 2006 and
2007. He pointed out that this legislation applies to donations of
easements only, not to land donations.
“ALT and other land trusts
throughout the country are working to make these increased tax
incentives permanent,” he added.
Those who have questions about the
new regulations may phone Mr. LePage at 372-2785.
Aspetuck Land Trust is a nonprofit
organization dedicated to preserving and maintaining open space in
Weston, Easton, Fairfield, and Westport. Since its founding in 1966,
the trust has preserved for public recreational use nearly 2,000 acres
of land in the four towns.
For more information, visit
www.aspetucklandtrust.org.
