Georgetown developer cited for violating water permit
by Jeff Yates

A drawdown of water behind the Gilbert & Bennett dam in Georgetown went beyond the scope of permitted activity and may have caused damage to the Norwalk River, according to state officials.

The Georgetown Land Development Company, which is building a 400-plus unit housing development along the banks of the Norwalk River at the old Gilbert & Bennett site, was cited this week for improper water diversion after draining the pond to inspect the dam for damage. Among the issues state officials have with the drawdown and subsequent refilling of the dam pond, which occurred from Thursday, Aug. 3, through Tuesday, Aug. 8, was the improper handling of the water, the release of large quantities of water to drain the pond and reduced flows released into the river as the dam pond was being refilled.

“We have issued a notice of violation for water diversion,” said Christopher Malik, an official with the state’s water bureau, on Tuesday. “We’re in the investigation stage to assess the damage to the Norwalk River.”

The drawdown had been permitted by the inland water resources branch of the state Department of Environmental Protection in order for the group to assess the structural integrity of the dam, said Mr. Malik, but the company violated the permit.
“Obviously they didn’t do what they told us they would do,” he said. “There are multiple issues... They went beyond the scope of what they told us they would do and did it before they said they would.”

Peter Barhydt, a spokesperson for the development company, said Wednesday that he was unaware of any notice of violation and that in phone talks with state officials the possibility of a violation notice had not been mentioned. He said an engineering firm handled the drawdown of the water in the pond behind the dam and that excess water was drained from the pond by accident because engineers underestimated the amount of silt — and therefore the total volume of water — behind the dam.

“When it was determined that excess water was being discharged the sluice was turned down,” said Mr. Barhydt.
He said reports that the dam was ever completely shut off, cutting the flow of the Norwalk River, were not accurate.

“We need to inspect the dam to make sure of its safety to protect the river,” he said. “There were elements of it that need to be addressed” in terms of repairing the dam, but he said there is no immediate danger of the dam failing.  Mr. Barhydt said he expects the environmental impacts of the drawdown would only be short term.

“The wildlife that was in the pond will naturally repopulate in the very near future,” he said. According to Dick Harris, a water quality monitoring expert with Harbor Watch/River Watch of Earthplace in Westport, the dam drawdown was discovered by chance on Thursday, Aug. 3, when two DEP officials happened to be inspecting the Norwalk River south of the dam along Old Mill Road.
“When they got to Old Mill Road, a big wall of water came rolling down river,” he said of what the officials related to him in a phone call from the river.

Mr. Harris told them to continue upstream until they found the source of the high water and they quickly discovered the dam at Gilbert & Bennett was being drained.

“The pond went down quickly, they didn’t tell the neighbors and they (the neighbors) came out and saw mud flats and a lot of dead fish,” said Mr. Harris.

The damage wasn’t just to the pond itself, however, and DEP officials are working to determine exactly how the high flows when the pond was drained and the reduced flows when the sluice was shut off impacted the river further downstream.
“High velocity discharges (from the dam drain) scoured out some of the material” and eroded soil along the Norwalk River downstream, said Mr. Malik. “There was also somebody who witnessed on Tuesday that the streambed was dry and they called” the development company, which then began discharging a small flow of water into the river, he said.

Mr. Harris said the reduced water flow down the Norwalk River had a noticeable impact on the oxygen levels in the river. Gauges set up just downstream of the dam, for testing not connected to the drawdown, reflected that oxygen levels dropped below state safety levels for recreational swimming, he said.

Mr. Harris said he will not know what the impact was on the Norwalk Harbor, where the river flows into Long Island Sound some 10 miles away, until he has a chance to study the oxygen levels in the harbor over the next few weeks.

Mr. Malik said upon receiving the violation notice, the company will have 30 days to investigate the incident and file a report with the state indicating what went wrong and what steps will be taken to ensure a similar incident doesn’t happen in future inspection or maintenance work on the dam.

Patricia Sesto, Wilton’s director of environmental affairs, said her office did not receive any phone calls regarding the drawdown and change in flow of the Norwalk River. She said she expects that may have been because there are very few homes along the river in the northern reaches of town and the changes may have dissipated by the time the river reached more populated areas.

Ms. Sesto said that droughts like the one Wilton is currently going through are a natural occurrence, though this year has not been as bad as droughts in past years. The wildlife, however, has managed to survive or bounce back from low water flows in the Norwalk River, but instances where human actions impact the river could cause a tipping point from which the river and its wildlife may not be able to recover.

“What worries me... as a suburban landscape we keep doing things to these rivers and the river is less able to handle the natural cycles,” she said.