DOWN WITH THE DAMS: RE-OPENING OUR RIVERS

To native and wild fish trying to migrate upstream, it doesn’t matter if a dam is 3 feet or 30 feet high - they represent an impenetrable barrier and have an immediate impact on the health of a stream’s ecology.

There are more than 4,000 dams of various sizes dotting Connecticut’s landscape, most the derelict vestiges of a pre-industrial past, and almost all of them no longer serving a useful purpose. Here in lower Fairfield County, dozens of these dams are impeding the restoration of local streams. Fortunately, thanks to willing landowners and passionate partners, we’ve begun to chip away at them and in the past few years have seen five dams removed. Currently, we’re making plans to tear down another eight dams on Comstock Brook, the Norwalk River and the Mianus River to re-open more than a dozen miles of stream to native species that have been locked out of critical habitat for decades - and more than a century in some cases.

We’ve already seen what can happen when a dam is removed - the river is virtually reborn and wild fish that have long been absent return in just a matter of years. This Giving Tuesday, help us knock out these deadbeat dams and re-open our local streams to the fish that have swum in their waters for thousands of years.