OYSTER SHELL PARK: The city hopes for a pearl as it tries to complete a long-unfinished
riverfront park
Originally published August 12, 2007
NORWALK —It was a rainy Saturday in June 2001 when the city
held a lavish grand opening for Heritage Park.
The
sprawling project - which connects South Norwalk and Mathews Park
through a series of trails and open space - had been in the works
since 1988, when then-Mayor Frank Esposito announced Norwalk was one
of afew cities to receive funding under a state heritage park program.
For that June day six years ago, the city had planned symphonies,
choirs and art exhibits. Esposito cut a ribbon to mark the occasion.
PLANT
PATHOLOGIST PROBES DEMISE OF COASTAL WETLANDS
Originally published July 29, 2007
MADISON
- On the banks of a shallow, winding creek in Hammonasset State Park,
something is wrong.
Wade
Elmer, a plant pathologist with the state Agricultural Experiment
Station, crouches beside a few golden-green clumps of marsh grass,
his duck boots pressing into deep mud that covers a large part of
the surrounding creek bank. He snaps a few photos and inspects the
grass.
A
few feet away - where there's no sign of the grass clumps - the creekbank
resembles a reef: It's pockmarked with softball-size holes. A stream
of tiny fiddler crabs scurries through the mud. Running the length
of this section of barren, reef-like embankment is a jagged fissure
- the kind you expect to see in a dry desert, not in a coastal wetland.
