Around Town

‘The Whole Process Was Very Smooth’: Dredge for Pond at Lakeview Cemetery

By |

A dredge of one of the ponds at Lakeview Cemetery is wrapping up, a project designed to improve aesthetics and to clear out muck that could lead to green algal blooms.

Launched in response to findings of excessive sedimentation and invasive species in the pond, the dredge represents an eco-friendly investment by the Cemetery Association itself in a property that is deeply important to residents. “Overall, the whole process was very smooth,” Lakeview Cemetery Superintendent Peter Passaro said. “It was a good experience.”

Approved by the town’s Inland Wetlands officials, the project saw in its first stage “suction dredging,” which involves pumping out sediment from the pond and now involves “geotextile tubes,” which replaces water that had been removed. According to the project proposal from Ridgefield-based Pristine Waters LLC: “We believe that [the Lakeview Cemetery] pond is a very good candidate for suction draining … to prevent the buildup of decomposed organic sediment (muck), which would overload the pond with phosphates that lead to greater algae growth. The pond that underwent dredging is in the southeast part of the property—past the veterans’ gravesite area.

Government

Inland Wetlands To Prospective New Canaan Homeowners: ‘Buyer Beware’

By |

New Canaan is seeing an uptick in the number of Inland Wetlands violations cited by the town—an unsettling trend that officials attribute, in part, to a lack of knowledge among homeowners who aren’t checking to see whether their plans require permits. Asked to summarize the situation for prospective property owners in New Canaan, Inland Wetlands Director Kathy Holland said: “Buyer beware.”

“Buyer beware of the particulars: lot-by-lot, as far as where the wetlands are located, whether there is good information for that location, whether or not it has been field-tested by a certified soil scientist. That’s the requirement. That’s the only way to know whether wetlands are present or absent.”

New Canaan’s Inland Wetlands Regulations (they can be found, along with other resources, by selecting ‘Inland Wetlands’ from the dropdown menu on this page), like those of other municipalities, follow from what is commonly called the “Clean Water Act” of 1972. The provisions within it protect the environment, and people’s health, by setting standards in areas such as groundwater, flooding, erosion and pollution.

Government

‘A True Town Treasure’: New Canaan Pays Tribute to Dr. Sven Englund, 93, for Contributions on Inland Wetlands Commission

By |

New Canaan landscape architect Keith Simpson can remember his very first appearance before the newly formed New Canaan Inland Wetlands Commission in 1988—for a subdivision on Seminary Street known at the time as the “Bryant-Kellogg subdivision.”

It required blasting out about 30 or 40 feet of rock to get through into what we know today as Scofield Lane—and in the 26 years since, Simpson and scores of fellow architects as well as residents, lawyers, soil experts and other professionals as they’ve sought approvals for sensitive projects have depended, among others, on one consistent figure on the commission: Dr. Sven Englund. “He’s a brilliant engineer and we all benefitted from his knowledge and understanding of engineering and science—he was a tremendous help to other commissioners,” Simpson said Monday night from the Douglass Room at Lapham Community Center, where nearly 40 locals gathered to honor Dr. Sven Englund for his decades of service on the commission. “I think he and other commissioners have been very good about striking a balance between making sure the wetlands are protected and allowing property owners to have a reasonable exercise of their rights as property owners, but doing the job which state statutes really require, which is to protect the wetlands,” Simpson said. “There are sometimes when you have to come close to wetlands and sometimes you have to cross them and if you do it in a responsible way then it’s fair and things don’t get damaged long-term.”

During a celebration of the 93-year-old’s work—which in truth goes back to the early-1970s, as a member of the then-Environmental Commission, family members say, a predecessor to Inland Wetlands—current commission Chairman Daniel Stepanek presented Dr. Sven Englund with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Connecticut Association of Conservation and Inland Wetlands Commissions, First Selectman Rob Mallozzi and Selectman Beth Jones read a proclamation declaring Dec. 15 ‘Dr. Sven Englund Day in New Canaan,’ and Stepanek, Simpson, Inland Wetlands and Watercourses Director Kathleen Holland, son Sven Englund and others offered words of gratitude to a man that Mallozzi called “a town treasure.”

A retired chemical engineer and father of two, prominent member of the United Methodist Church and choir who also has belonged for years to the New Canaan Senior Men’s Club, Dr. Sven Englund announced in October that he was stepping down from the commission.