Grant will fund watershed management plan

WASSAIC — A $64,000 grant from the Long Island Sound Futures Fund 2017 has been awarded to the Housatonic Valley Association (HVA) to create a watershed management plan for the Ten Mile River, which meanders through parts of Connecticut into New York’s Harlem Valley.

“This is really the culmination of many years of work by a lot of people to get community stakeholders in the Ten Mile River watershed in the Harlem Valley to work together to address issues that transcend municipal boundaries,” said HVA Watershed Conservation Director Michael Jastremski. 

The issues range from water quality to flood damage prevention to enhancing recreational opportunities to tourism.

“These are all management issues that are really difficult for any one player to address on their own,” said Jastremski. “It really takes everyone coming together to be able to address all of those issues effectively. HVA has been working for a number of years to facilitate that collaboration and we have great partners in all our watershed communities, state and regional agencies and nonprofits.”

In fact, those partners have been meeting as a collaborative since 2014. That’s important, because the Ten Mile River watershed covers 200 square miles in eastern Dutchess County and western Litchfield County, Conn., including 15 municipalities. In New York, all or portions of the towns of Amenia, Dover, North East, Stanford, Washington, Ancram, Union Vale and Pawling, and the villages of Millerton and Pawling, are within the Ten Mile River watershed. In Connecticut, the towns of Sharon and Salisbury are included.

As the HVA explains, the watershed’s location is “complex.” It shares two federal agency regions, two state environmental agencies, two Soil and Water Conservation Districts and two regional planning agencies. Nonprofits are also involved, including the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Dutchess County and the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, both in Millbrook.

HVA was chosen as one of 20 local government and community groups to receive funds totaling $1.2 million from the Long Island Sound Futures Fund 2017. 

“This regional grant program combines funds from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to improve the health and ecosystem of the Long Island Sound,” according to an HVA press release.

The $64,000 grant award will be met with $83,000 in matching  funds to help HVA with construction projects like restoring and stabilizing the stream bank, the planning process, conservation and programming.

“Once we have a set of actions, if you’re the average citizen, that’s where you’ll start to notice the impacts,” said Jastremski. “What the plan will allow us to do beyond giving a road map, is it’s a resource — a tool — for getting work done. Generally, it’s very difficult to find money for projects and programs if it’s not identified as some kind of plan. A plan is a crucial first step to getting there.”

Amenia town Councilwoman and Conservation Advisory Council (CAC) liaison to the Town Board Vicki Doyle said the work HVA does is critical in supporting and protecting the watershed, a valuable resource in the town of Amenia and hamlet of Wassaic, where HVA has an office.

“HVA is just a really important resource for the Harlem Valley and the preservation and protection of the quality of our water and our rivers and streams along the Ten Mile River water basin,” she said. “They are constantly doing great projects to benefit the towns that are withing their watershed.”

She listed a few. A rain garden was created by HVA behind the Amenia Town Hall. There, water from the roof and the parking lot goes into the rain garden behind the playground.

“That’s a big, big garden and the water off the roof is used to wash away sand that’s been in the playground for years,” said Doyle. “Now, the rain garden restores water in a more agreeable way.”

Also, HVA has helped plant trees and shrubs along the waterways, including many trout streams, to help stabilize the banks, reduce erosion and keep the temperatures cooler for the fish. 

“If people mow right to the edge, you have a warming of the streams that the trout can’t survive in,” explained Doyle. “Those are two examples. HVA also helps with our clean up days on Earth Day in Amenia and Dover, and spearheads the Ten Mile River Watershed Roundtable … If we have an issue with land use, they always weigh in and provide supporting evidence that’s helpful. They’re weighing in on the Kent Hollow Mine issue and on mining activity close to the Webatuck Creek, and how those activities affect water quality and ecology in the area.”

Doyle said that so many towns and groups working together is hugely beneficial.

“With all those towns cooperating … we’re all working collaboratively together, so the little work we do in Amenia is amplified when six other towns and organizations are working toward the same goal,” she said. 

That’s key, agreed Jastremski.

“The collaborative is also successful in getting the Ten Mile River added to the list of designated inland waterways,” he said, “which means that it’s a watershed community now eligible for a slew of grants through New York state.”

The grant contract period for the most recent award doesn’t begin until February of 2018. Right now, HVA is getting organized. It plans on holding another collaborative meeting in January, where it will roll out the planning process and meet with partners not yet engaged with. There will likely be some public outreach at that time as well.

For more on HVA or the Ten Mile River Watershed Management Plan, go to www.hvatoday.org.