Posted on January 5, 2017
By Ken Borsuk, greenwich time
The town has plans to dredge the silt-filled pond in Binney Park, but some community members said officials are moving forward without doing their proper research.
Meg Nolan Van Reesma, president of the Old Greenwich Association, said residents want the pond and the park maintained. But they have become wary of officials who only seem to answer questions after being repeatedly asked and who have been mum on the dredging project for years only to announced that plans are set to begin in the next few months.
“Most people think that we should clean it up and have the park be as maintained as possible,” Van Reesma said.
The frustration among Old Greenwich residents, she said, is that no action seems to have been taken despite $880,000 budgeted in 2015-2016 fiscal year for dredging.
In both 2015 and 2016, the pond was clogged nearly half a dozen times with dead fish, raising community concerns about toxic and runoff chemicals coming into the water from Stamford and from nearby Interstate 95.
Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) have been found in the sediment from Binney Pond and residents have publicly questioned how dredged sediment will be disposed of, since toxic levels of silt cannot be dumped into a normal landfill.
Officials and experts have said the fish kills were a natural process — salt water fish getting into freshwater Binney Pond during higher-than-normal tides or runoff. The levels of PCBs shift so tests taken one month cannot be used to determine toxic soils a year later, they said, so disposal can’t be decided before a dredging plan is in place.
The project seemed stalled.
Then late last year, the town announced it was within a few steps of getting the pond dredged of 9,500 cubic yards of silt. The Army Corps of Engineers is in the middle of a public comment period on the project, accepting input until Jan. 13. The key permit for dredging the pond could come within the next few months.
Van Reesma said residents wanted to know how the town plans to account for disposing of the dredged silt. They want to know how the town plans to keep the pond from silting up again. And they want to know why they get conflicting statements when they ask for information.
“Clearly Binney Pond needs to be dredged and it should be dredged,” said First Selectman Peter Tesei. “I haven’t changed my view.”
Testing of the material in the pond will be done by the Department of Public Works but will not take place until dredging actually begins, said Patricia Sesto, director of the town’s Inland Wetlands and Watercourses committee.
“Like many tests we take, it’s only good for a limited period of time,” Sesto said. “Things can change in a year so the results are not going to be accurate if they’re done now and then the dredging takes place. If tests were done now they would have to be redone.”
Sesto also said the dredging work was designed with built-in safeguards to keep the pond as clean as possible in the future. Dredging alone won’t fix the silt problem in Binney Pond, she and other experts have said.
According to Sesto, sediment basins will be installed at the upper portion of the pond where two streams come together to catch material before it goes into the water.
“These are used whenever a stream enters a pond or a larger body of water,” Sesto said. “When you have a flow coming into a pond with a lot of energy… the basins disrupt that flow and collect what is being carried in.”
The town Department of Public Works will be responsible for cleaning the catch basins, Sesto said.
“The life of any pond will be prolonged by taking care of this,” Sesto said. “As soon as you stop digging, the pond starts filling. That’s just what ponds do.”
Source: greenwich time
