WINSTED — Between 1966 and 1968, the Sucker Brook Dam was built in response to the flood of 1955 that devastated towns in the northwest corner.

The dam protects the Highland Lake watershed, preventing runoff from the surrounding areas of the popular lake.

But over the years, the main pipe that diverted stormwater and runoff from the dam into a stream has deteriorated. Because the dam was built by the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and the Army Corps of Engineers, town leaders had to ask those entities to fix the rotted pipe.

“After chasing the DEEP for this, they did a project to replace the pipe,” said Mayor Candy Perez, who has lived on Highland Lake since the 1990s. “When the DEEP went to fix it, they didn’t want to use a straight pipe like before. Instead, they put sections of it from the bottom to the top of the dam, and installed it in pieces with vertical concrete reinforcement. The engineering was designed to slow the water down.”

The repair project was completed in 2018. But in the fall of that year, a serious runoff problem developed, Perez said.

Winsted officials still battling silt runoff from Sucker Brook Dam

By Emily M. Olson

Published 6:00 am EDT, Sunday, April 12, 2020

WINSTED — Between 1966 and 1968, the Sucker Brook Dam was built in response to the flood of 1955 that devastated towns in the northwest corner.

The dam protects the Highland Lake watershed, preventing runoff from the surrounding areas of the popular lake.

But over the years, the main pipe that diverted stormwater and runoff from the dam into a stream has deteriorated. Because the dam was built by the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and the Army Corps of Engineers, town leaders had to ask those entities to fix the rotted pipe.

“After chasing the DEEP for this, they did a project to replace the pipe,” said Mayor Candy Perez, who has lived on Highland Lake since the 1990s. “When the DEEP went to fix it, they didn’t want to use a straight pipe like before. Instead, they put sections of it from the bottom to the top of the dam, and installed it in pieces with vertical concrete reinforcement. The engineering was designed to slow the water down.”

The repair project was completed in 2018. But in the fall of that year, a serious runoff problem developed, Perez said.

“One day on October 2018, I’m driving by the culvert by my house, and there’s water just running through it, and it’s chocolate brown,” Perez said. “It’s happened before, but not like that. I thought, ‘Something’s really wrong. It looks like coffee with milk in it.’ I went to take a look and the whole thing was flooded out. The pipe had burst, and sent tons of sediment down the hill, and the pipes with it.”

Without the pipe system, the quality of the water at Highland Lake deteriorated. The dam repair was badly needed , Perez said, but funding wasn’t available, according to DEEP.

“It took until June 2019 before DEEP could get authorization and bond money to do the project,” Perez said. “ So they didn’t start work until October 2019.”

Impact on Highland Lake

The lack of clarity in the lake became a bigger concern in April 2019, after scientist George Knoecklein, of Northeast Aquatic Research LLC tested the water as he does each year on the same day. A water sample showed the clarity of the water in the northern section of the lake was only to 1.8 meters, or about six feet, deep.

A 2018 sample at the same location showed the water was clear to 4.3 meters deep, or about 14 feet. The measurements in 2016 and 2015 also reflect a level of clarity that was more than two feet deeper than this year’s sample.

When the DEEP repaired the diversion system at the Sucker Brook Dam last year, rainy weather exacerbated the silt runoff. “The runoff contains light, silty dirt, which goes into the lake,” Perez said. “The quality of the water has always been so good, and it’s a very popular lake up here. People live on it, and they use it all year long.”

In January 2020, DEEP stopped work for the winter. But a mild winter kept the silt runoff going. “Every time it rains, we’re getting more and more sediment going into the lake,” Perez said. “The construction site itself was flooded.”

Winsted’s Board of Selectmen has reached out to the DEEP to report the continuing silt problem, but Perez said communication between her board and the state has been poor.

“The Board of Selectmen in December agreed to send a letter to the state about the silt still running into the lake,” Perez said. “We asked for reports about the repair project, and they finally sent us the reports. What’s interesting is that in the 2018 engineering report, it said that four of the twelve (concrete reinforcements) weren’t fitted properly. The report also talks about lack of inspections.

“So here we are today, with the town and the Highland Lake authority asking questions, and our tax money is going into this project,” Perez said. “It’s been 14 months since they finished the work, and there’s still a problem. We don’t know what the state’s going to do about all the silt that went into the lake.”

State Rep. Jay Case, R-Winsted, and state Sen. Craig Miner, R-30th, have been involved with the town’s efforts to get the dam repaired. In May 2019, both visited the dam and contacted state officials to move the project forward.

“We’ve been on top of the DEEP to get this project done,” Case said. “We’ve been doing all we can.”

DEEP’s response

In late February, the DEEP responded to the Board of Selectmen with a letter detailing how it was dealing with the silt runoff and the failed diversion system at the dam.

“We have made an effort to keep the town up to date with matters involving the construction (of dam repairs) through emails and several site visits with town officials,” DEEP Deputy Commissioner Betsey Wingfield said in the letter. “In addition, DEEP has implemented some suggestions made by town officials in regards to sediment and erosion controls at the site, such as the sediment detention system located directly downstream from the work site.”

Wingfield said the DEEP recognized the importance of Highland Lake to the community, “By means of a a vital recreation and fishing location,” she wrote.

Wingfield explained that the DEEP had installed hay bales to prevent runoff, and that it had installed a “riprap diversion channel to protect the site from flowing water and sediment washout.” The dam repair also included silt fences around the dam and other preventative measures.

Case pointed out that the location of the dam and accessing the areas to remediate the failed system isn’t easy. “That pipe is 75 feet downhill,” he said. “It’s not a very friendly site to work on. But we have to be very careful with our resources, and places like Highland Lake are important to the town and the state.

“Like the coronavirus, we will get through it,” he said. “We’ll get through this too. We’ll do the best we can to make this happen, to make the dam whole.”

What about the silt?

The Board of Selectmen are hoping the state can help remediate the silt runoff, since its the original repair project failed.

“The main thing is to keep more silt from coming in,” Perez said. “At the same time, we believe we need answers about what happened, the expenses related to that, and what the state’s going to do about it.”

In her letter, Wingfield acknowledged the selectmen’s concerns, but said the DEEP was not able to help remove the tons of silt that are now in Highland Lake.

“As for your request for a sediment recovery plan, DEEP cannot provide that at this time,” Wingfield wrote. “Unfortunately, funding for this project is dedicated to the costs associated with the repair of the failed pipe. Funding cannot be utilized outside said scope, such as to recover sediment from the lake.”

Dredging the lake to remove the silt is an option, Perez said, using special equipment. “But a lot of silt went into the main body of the lake,” she said. “Last summer we had a diatom (algae) bloom in the lake, and that made it murky. Why did that happen? Was it because of the silt or was it human activity? We don’t know.”

For now, the town and the Highland Lake Association is doing its own tests to monitor the water’s quality. “If we do that, we can determine whether the breach to the dam caused the poor quality, or if it was just a natural occurrence,” Perez said.

“Our frustration, as a board, is that the DEEP didn’t communicate with us, unless we communicated with them first. All we’re doing now is making sure they communicate with us, that they pay attention to detail,” Perez said. “It’s up to us to make sure they continue to do all the work that needs to be done.”

She said that not all the things the DEEP has done to repair the failed pipe system are working. “A lot of attention to detail is just not there,” she said. “Erosion control fences fall over; they don’t pick them up, or they’re installed incorrectly. We have to keep up with things like that to make sure they know.”

The repair project may be stalled now, because of the coronavirus pandemic. “In the meantime, there’s still a chance for more runoff, if we have a big storm. The state did a fix, and it didn’t work. We just want to stop that silt.”

Highland Lake’s importance

Perez likened the lake to a bathtub, that collects everything that crosses its path. “It gets everything in it, from the road, from the properties around it, from the dam,” she said. “But the lake’s water quality has always been very good.

“In the summertime, when some lakes get really warm the state has to close the beaches. We haven’t had to close the beaches around Highland Lake, because the water’s always been so clean,” she said. “Good quality water is good for everyone … it’s good for the fish, the environment, for the people who live there and those who visit from out of town. We want to keep it as clean as long as we can.”

The mayor is just hoping that when the DEEP finally completes the dam repairs, the lake will get back to normal and retain its clear water.

“Hopefully they’ll get this finished with minimal breaks in erosion control,” she said. “And hopefully that takes care of the issue.”

Source: registercitizen