Darien, CT – Land for sale in Darien, CT. It’s zoned for residential building. It’s right at the end of Cherry Street. Cherry Street? Oh, you must remember Cherry Street from the floods in 2007. Feet deep in water, boats were used to navigate the street!

Was Darien’s Town government serious when they wrote the 2006 Town Plan? It extolls the need of “open space”, not just for aesthetics, but for permeable surface. It hems and haws around considering to buy property to maintain open space.  Just alot of hot air?

The Milone and McBroom study and recommendations are now done and they have a something to say about Cherry Street and Hecker Avenue. They recommend a floodwall (see map below).

On the above map from the Millone and McBroom report it shows a bright gold outline of the proposed flood wall. The flood plain is the blue line. The added green triangle is the land for sale. Will the people who purchase homes on this site be provided with a multiple page disclaimer to inform them of their risk of evasive water, washed out cars, and flood risks? As more permeable surface is covered will homeowners downstream be compensated for the added water coming their way? How can the Town of Darien possibly give someone a permit to build on the watery side of a proposed flood wall? Calling Brad Pitt… Yoo-hoo, Brad… Can Darien have the plans for your highrise New Orleans homes on stilts?

How about the Town buying this property? Sounds like a pretty good idea since Milone and McBrome recommends a floodwall for this area. The Town is really entrenched in the position they won’t do any work on private property. Wouldn’t be great if this were owned by the Town. The Town of Darien then could build the flood protection without the fear of stepping on private property? Guess they aren’t planning any flood mitigation for Cherry Street. Sorry, folks.

You may be thinking, “Oh, surely the Town won ‘t let anyone build right next to Stony Brook.” The Environmental Protection Commission has made it clear that people can build on their own land in Darien. So something’s going in on this site. Won’t it be fun to watch?! Maybe the builder will put in a rain garden.

Darien, CT – Rain predicted. The pump is set up on the Heights Road today.

It pumps the water “UP” to the Depot parking lot. See, Public Works Dept. employees are there waiting for the rain and are ready to turn on the pump.

The water will come out into the parking lot and the water goes to.. ????

Rain predicted so the town has the pump in place on heights. Is this going to be the permanent solution?

The Darien Times Website has a feature article on the hold-ups of the Baker Park flood mitigation for Heights Road. There’s also a survey asking whether 100 year old trees should be removed for flood control. The overwhelming answer today is to save the trees. We anticipate that those who choose trees aren’t choosing them over people. I’m sure our tree loving neighbors will be there to help the Heights Rd shops schlog their wet inventory to dumpsters after the next flooding. If you’re advocating continued flood damage, then you need to be willing to put your money, time, and back muscles into the clean up and continued losses.

Slow Go For Noroton Flood Control at Baker Park

Darien, CT– Tonight Bob Steeger from Public Works took citizens on a tour of the proposed “offset” site for the Baker Project. It was interesting to see how misunderstood this project is.

The State DEP has demanded an “offset”… the rehabilitation of a wetlands to make up for a small wetlands area at the Baker Park site. The site chosen by the DEP and Public Works Dept. is just to the left of the entrance to Darien High School at the end of Noroton Ave.  If you look at the site you’ll see that there is a small creek – a tributary—and a large berm between the creek and the DHS driveway.

From what Mr. Steeger shared tonight, here’s some interesting facts to keep in mind about this site:

1. The creek channel was dug out about 40 years ago as part of a drainage project. The dirt from the dig was piled up for the berm, no specific purpose just an economy to avoid the cost of carting it away.
2. During this project 40 years ago or so, this land was changed from a wetlands area to a woodland.
3. The creek does not flow to Long Island Sound, but in the opposite direction toward the back of DHS and to Stony Brook.
4. The plan is to take out trees and dig out the berm. It will bring the land down the level of the channel and create an area where water can perk into the soil. There will also be new berms perpendicular, across, the channel. The new berms will slow the flow of water in sever storms.
5. Only trees on the DHS side of the channel will be removed and AFTER the soil is removed new trees and plants will be planted.  All the large trees on the other side will remain and will continue to provide a curtain between homes and the high school. 

There seems to be a lot of grumbling about the removal of trees. I love trees. They are what attracted us to Connecticut. Unlike a sports facility that removed trees and didn’t replant, these trees at DHS will be replaced. Unlike builders clear cut property in Darien, the land will remain in a pervious state without a mega-mansion, driveway, patio and other concrete hard-scape features that prevent water from perking into the soil.   

The thing that speaks the best for both sites of the Baker Field project is the DHS site. Years ago trees were removed and saplings planted. Trees have re-grown.  This is what will happen again. 

There are just some things that are a given in Darien. Our Town government sucks at communicating. The number of disgruntled people at this walk-through stems from poor notice of the project and poor communication of what will be done.

However, putting bad communication aside… this project needs to happen.  Who wants to call Valvala’s, Innovative Invitations, or Sanda’s to tell them they need to climb up on their counters to escape water the next time there’s a heavy storm?  The Town and their engineers say this project will improve flooding and make no area flood more.  We need to prove that 50 years of neglected flood control is behind Darien!

Darien, CT — Never have we flooded so much (2007 in Darien) to being forgotten so quickly by our town representatives (2009 in Darien).

The January 6, 2009 edition of the Darien Times reported that the town was requested money for flood mitigation. NOT TRUE! I didn’t recognize any of the projects reported in the press: they weren’t the suggestions found in the Flood Mitigation Committee’s report nor were they repairs of any of the “hot spot” in the 12 Work Orders Save Darien’s Wetlands presented to the Department of Public Works, Board of Selectmen, EPC, and Board of Finance.

The items reported as flood projects kind of sounded like sewage to me. So, I went to the Board of Selectmen Meeting the following Monday and asked if Robert Steeger (head of Public Works) could elaborate on the Flood Mitigation Projects reported in the newspaper. Karl Kilduff, the town administrator clarified that the paper had made a mistake and that all the projects were for sewage and waste water.

Sorry folks, I’m still mystified. Governor Rell asked the towns to submit “shovel ready” projects for the state’s request for stimulus funds. Almost two years after promising to get right on this flooding thing… the town still feels they have no “shovel ready” projects. But hey, they have some great aerial photos. Of course the photos look much the same as you can get on google, google earth, msn, seadragon, et al… FOR FREE! And they had to shrink the La Forge Road flood mitigation project, eliminating the the Lillian Terrace part due to expenses. Wasn’t that “shovel ready” and just in the need of funding?

I see that Darien’s imaginary flood mitigation projects have made it into the New York Times (read article).  You gotta love this. The New York Times really did their research, NOT! They report “Darien requested $5.5 million to mitigate flooding.” Darien requested NOTHING. The Times article gives a link to the list by town of stimulus requests (view PDF). This shameful list shows that flooding is NOT on the list.

When is the next election in Darien? You can bet Flooding is going to be a hot topic. Each candidate from each party ran on flooding in the last election .  They’ve seem to believe that getting together to talk and filing failed applications for permits and grants is the same as taking ACTION on flooding. IT IS NOT.  Where was flooding on their list when they filed for stimulus money? The answer is that flooding wasn’t on their list at all.

Don’t you think it’s odd that both the Darien Times and the New York Times misunderstood from Town Hall on the same issue? Doesn’t look like a coincidence. Perhaps what our politicians are saying to the press is different than what they are doing?

You may have nestled into your front porch rocker to recount tales of the flooding in 2007: “…It was the year of all the floods. It was the year we had 3 one hundred year storms in Darien.” BUNK!

Darien has hired Milone and McBroom as consulting engineers to study the Stony Brook watershed and give advice on flooding.  In their presentation they included a chart (below) to show the increase in rainfall in storms, including the noted “100 Year Storm”.

It’s important to note that the 100 Year Storm used to be 7 inches of rain, but due to increased rainfall amounts it is now 9 inches of rain.

So what the heck were the storms of 2007?

Take a look at storm totals on the National Weather service website: http://www.erh.noaa.gov/okx/stormtotals.html

March 2, 2007: Darien, CT …….. 3.91 inches. That’s about at 5 year storm on the Milone and McBroom chart.

April 15, 2007:  Darien, CT…….. 5.93 inches. That’s close but not quite a 40 year storm on the Milone and McBroom chart.

April 27, 2007: no count for Darien, but Bridgeport and Westport got about 1.5inches. You’ll notice that it’s such a small amount that it didn’t even take a place on the Rainfall chart above. So, why did we have overbank flooding of Stony Brook on that day?

October 11, 2007:  No report of rainfall for Darien, however New Canaan reported 5.4 inches and Stamford reported 5.10 inches and they had flooding.  That hits somewhere around a 20 year storm on the Rainfall chart above.

So, what does this all mean? It means that when you hear in Town Hall meetings that the Darien drainage system can handle a 15 year storm, that may no longer be true. Development has put more water, faster into the brooks that drain Darien.  We didn’t have mega storms in 2007. We didn’t have a 100 year storm. One engineer at Town Hall told me we had a 500 year storm in 2007.  How on earth could you figure that out? Counting tree rings, reading  hieroglyphics left by natives before the Pilgrims arrived? It simply wasn’t as much rain as you’ve been led to believe. What is it? One storm that occurred while the ground was frozen and three more that proved that the driainage system isn’t working.

Neighbors frustrated by Stony Brook flooding around Middlesex Road have shared their experiences of the torrent that overflows the brook and closes roads, flows over property, and into their homes.  When a new “McMansion” was proposed for a wetlands site that floods, it was easy to see this is a very silly idea… and there is something better that would turn the tide (sorry about the pun) and make an important step toward controlling flooding.

It’s time to support the Environmental Protection Commission (EPC) to do their job.  The Town Code says their job is to prevent flooding.  Not make it just a bit better, or to only add to a small amount to the problem. The pupose of the EPC is to prevent floods. 

In February, after meetings of all the town boards and commissions, the Town of Darien presented the Flood Mitigation Strategy. This is it– the Town’s plan to address flooding.  An important piece is water detention and now there is an opportunity for detention at a significant one acre location.

This flooding pickle came to pass from the flourish of development that has covered soil (rainwater likes to naturally perk down into the soil), pointed runoff into the creeks which are the town’s drainage, and now that NO ONE cleans out the drainage (ie brooks, etc because there is no pipe) and years of sediment and plant growth have constricted the flow… well you get the picture… there’s more water going in to the brooks and they have been shrinking and can’t handle it.

So I signed the petition to ask the EPC to recommend to the Board of Selectmen to buy 305 Middlesex Road for flood detention.

It’s gotta start somewhere. It’s time.

To sign the petition online
http://www.petitiononline.com/buy305/petition.html

Just like the old song, a lot can be learned by looking at how Darien’s storm drains are connected. Yesterday there were two excellent pieces in the Darien Times. Both address the frustration, problems, and the absolute chaos that development is causing.

On page 5A, read the op-ed “My Address Changed, But My Location Didn’t” One homeowner not only lost his address when his neighbor split a lot and built new homes, but one of the new homes were given his old address. How do you take away someone’s address that is connected to so much of their identity?

This writer also brings up the bane of development in an already maxed-out area of Darien: diminished light and privacy, clear-cutting mature trees, etc.

You’re probably wondering what all this nonsense has to do with flooding. Go back to page one of the Times and the story about development of the “Odd Location” at 77 Leroy.

Here’s where the storm drain anatomy lesson is needed.

Let’s start at Tilly Pond. It’s not just a beauty spot, it’s a retention pond and one of Darien’s earlier attempts at flood mitigation. Run off from town streets and private property goes into Tilly Pond. It is then released through a pipe that goes under the tracks at the train station and makes a sharp turn to join the drain and pipe under the railroad bridge at Leroy Street.

Now, you have to go back to PAGE FOUR in the Times and the letter to the editor at the bottom. Mrs. Peterson spoke at the P&Z hearing and disclosed that flooding has been an issue on her property which adjoins the development site at 77 Leroy. She told how for many years there had been a “vernal pool” on that site, a seasonal wetlands feature. Peterson’s letter discusses again the developer brought in trap rock and fill, resulting in the alteration of the property.

So let’s make the connection. 77 Leroy used to be a location where water pooled and slowly seeped into the ground which is good for flood mitigation. The plan is to cover the site with a building, driveway and keep everything “low maintenance” with very little landscaping. Water tanks that may or may not be maintained are proposed and also sending water to the storm drain under the railroad bridge that is already getting water directed from Tilly Pond and run off from the Station parking lot.

Are we supposed to accept flooding of the road under the railroad bridge? Why do we want to send water toward Clock Hill one of Darien’s affordable housing developments? Is this going to send water down Brook Street and increase flooding in our business district?

Isn’t developing 77 Leroy not only “odd” but foolish?