June 27, 2023

CT DEEP letter requiring the city to restrict shoreline access until the restoration is completed, including fencing and signage.

December 21, 2023

ACCA and Aspetuck Land Trust (landowner of half of Great Marsh Island) asked LandTech to create a biodiverse restoration plan, which was sent to CT DEEP and the City of Bridgeport.

Click on link below to download the restoration table for 2024 plantings on northern shore of barrier spit. Sent with LandTech recommendaions letter.

July 9th, 2014

The Restoration and Reconstruction of Saint-Mary’s-by-the-Sea in Bridgeport & Fairfield, Connecticut was a proposal that did not obtain funding although there was serious interest by officials in Fairfield and Bridgeport in the plan.

If completed this project would have provided significant recreational, economic, and environmental benefits to the region. In the past century, Black Rock has seen this important neighborhood park decline from a sandy beach to a coarse, rocky beach providing limited recreational value. The parks defining feature, a sand dune, has shrunk over time as a result of recent coastal storms.

Saint Mary’s is an important recreation site to the surrounding community and to the overall environmental health of Long Island Sound. It provides recreation for local residents, serves as an environmental education location for nearby schools, and protects inland habitat and residences from storm damage.

The project was made more urgent by the historic degradation of the beach, which has lost several feet of elevation over the past fifty years and is in danger of further decline. Predicted future rises in sea levels and increased storm intensity necessitate the repair and long term management of this landscape. This long-term landscape stewardship should be aided by ongoing dredging activities for the adjacent South Benson Marina in Fairfield, CT. These dredging activities currently take sand from Ash Creek and place it on Jennings Beach—it would be better used and cheaper to place it at Saint Mary’s to build and maintain the dune’s elevation.

In addition to the immediate benefits this project would have provided, we also hoped it would serve as a precedent for future collaboration between Bridgeport and Fairfield elsewhere in the Ash Creek Estuary and Rooster River Watershed. This and other co-management strategies will be crucial for the management of Ash Creek.

In total, implementation of this project would have cost around 300,000 dollars. This investment would have been relatively small when compared to the dramatic improvements that would follow.

Some of these improvements will include:

• Increased area for sunbathing and fishing;

• Improved neighborhood aesthetics;

• Improved pedestrian connections to the adjacent esplanade;

• A dense, lush, and biodiverse native plant community;

• Greater protection of inland residences from coastal storm events;

• Greater protection of the Great Marsh Island from coastal storm events; and,

• Decreased operational costs for periodic dredging associated with South Benson Marina.

July 9, 2014

All totals approximate. This estimate is preliminary and subject to further revision. This document is for planning purposes only and not intended for construction.

*Cost of sand is assumed for delivery by truck. This cost may be reduced through coordination with nearby dredging projects provided material meets criteria for dune restoration. If “free” sand is obtained from dredging for South Benson

Marina or nearby projects then the total project cost will decrease by 50%, or more.

**All construction costs include installation.

***Suggested contingency is based on total project estimate and intended to be used for overruns for unexpected future events and field conditions.

Click on link below to download the schematic design.

The Regional Framework for Coastal Resilience final report (written by David Murphy, PE, CFM, Director of Resilience Engineering, CIRCA, for the COGs and TNC) includes numerous discussions about Ash Creek. This could “be” the plan that tees up a Track 2 project grant, if no other plan can be identified.

The “Multiple Use Management Plan for Coastal Open Space” developed in 1997 is not available, but you can click on the link below for “Ash Creek Goals from the Coastal Open Space Plan” for Fairfield. These goals were lifted from the document “Multiple Use Management Plan for Coastal Open Space” formally adopted as a statement of policy by the Fairfield Conservation Commission on October 16, 1997.

This document establishes as one of its primary coastal-wide goals to continue restoration of degraded tidal wetlands, including filled wetlands previously isolated from tidal flow by flood control dikes, where such restoration will provide public health, safety, and welfare benefits, and enhance the overall quality of natural resources and ecological functions in the coastal area.

There are several goals in this document that support this grant proposal:

1.Maintain and, to the extent feasible, restore the natural Ash Creek—Turney Creek estuarine ecological system (consisting of intertidal, riparian, and upland resources) and the associated biological, physical, and chemical processes that provide a diversity of beneficial values

5. Continue to restore wetland resources and associated ecological functions historically lost or degraded by placement of fill material or restriction of tidal flow in the estuary.

13. Support and encourage continued educational/scientific use of the Ash Creek estuary, including research in support of wetland restoration efforts and research regarding historical use of the estuary.

Fortify the coastline.

1A. Retain outside expertise to lead the outreach process and development of a Coastline Resiliency Plan, including an update to the Town’s Shellfish Management Plan. The plan should be adopted as a policy framework for the Town to guide the development of five-year Capital Improvement Plans, as detailed in Sound Fiscal Stewardship key initiative one.

1B. Improve the Inland Wetlands Program webpage to include an interactive map to provide property specific information on the impacts of the Town’s Inland Wetland and Watercourses Regulations to better connect the regulations and the Town’s land development regulations and more clearly communicate development restrictions.

1C. Continue to support and expand the Salt Marsh Restoration Program.

p. 65 Existing habitat and wetland should be conserved wherever possible in order to maintain the coastline’s resilience to sea level rise and storms while strengthening the local biosphere.”

Page 52 states Goal 2 Restore and protect the city’s waterfront and waterbodies. Under that, Strategy #4 states, “Continue to work with neighboring municipalities to implement the recommendations of…the Ash Creek Estuary Master Plan.”