Time for the Grievances

I put in at what I call Housatonic 3 - the third reach of the river counting from the sound.  Otherwise, it is know as Lake Zoar. I paddle in her once a year, or maybe twice if I can find a good reason. It is calm and cloudy although it was lightly raining most of the morning.  

I head up to the Pomperaug River, which is about a half mile in the upriver direction, if one wants to think of Lake Zoar as a river.  Last August, this area was hit by an extreme rainstorm that dumped almost 15 inches of water in  a 24 hour period.  Bridges, roads, structures were damaged or destroyed and a two people died.  The Pomperaug would have been a rushing torrent and I wanted to see how it fared. It pretty much looks the same.  The boulder patch where I always turn back (because there is another boulder patch above the first) might have had some of the boulders moved about.  It doesn't make much difference because the river bottom is a sloping shelf of bedrock.  I don't think I was aware of that before.

Lake Zoar is often listed in tourism type magazines - the ones with lists of "bests", as one of the best places to go kayaking or paddle boarding or canoeing in Connecticut.  It is not.  It is not 2nd best or 22nd best. When beaver build a dam and create a pond, they create habitat for fifteen additional species.  They are a "keystone" animal and contribute to improving the local environment.  When humans build a dam, quite the opposite seems to happen, and Zoar is a prime example of that.  The Stevenson Dam, completed in 1919, creates Lake Zoar. Like many reservoirs, Zoar has inadequate water circulation, which turns the lake into an oxygen deprived algae bloom stinkpile in midsummer.  It's not much more enjoyable when the water is clear and cold due to a poor development plan.  Much of the shoreline is an odd collection of this and that housing.  Some are old cabins, and some are newer middle class houses. There is no rhyme or reason to it other than to build as close as possible to the water.  To top that off, an interstate highway runs through the area. While there are a few segments of forest preserve, they are too small and just as one gets used to finally being next to a forest, another patch of weird cabin-houses intrudes.  And please, someone explain to me why waterfront of half of all middle class waterfront houses have to look like junkyard - rotting docks, floats, half wrecked boats and a pile of trashed plastic kayaks that haven't been used in years.

On an upside, I spotted three Bald Eagles.  Two matures seem to be mated and I suspect a nest is nearby.  The third was an immature.

THE END