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From the President: Summit Drive Will Be Open Through the Last Weekend of October. Come out and Enjoy the Spectacular View!

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From the President: Summit Drive Will Be Open Through the Last Weekend of October. Come out and Enjoy the Spectacular View! Newsletter of the West Rock Ridge Park Association Fall 2019 Summit drive will be open through the last weekend of October. Come out and enjoy the spectacular view! From the President: At the recent gathering of the Friends of Connecticut State Parks, co-president Pam Adams noted the successes of the Passport to the Parks: attendance at CT’s state parks increased by 10% in 2017, and again by 10% in 2018; people are using the parks all day long, and are using them more throughout the year. The funding from the Passport improves park staffing and planning. Both Pam and CFPA President Eric Hammerling noted, however, that there will likely be ongoing efforts to divert this funding to other causes. We who know the value of Connecticut’s state forests and parks must thus be vigilant to ensure that the funding from the Passport to the Parks continues to be applied to the parks, to provide for the essential staffing and maintenance that Connecticut’s citizens want. Please contact your legislators to state again how important the state’s parks are, and to impress on them how important it is that the Passport to the Parks funds continue to be dedicated to the state parks. The articles in this issue of Ridgelines highlight the many ways we can all enjoy – and help preserve and maintain – our beautiful West Rock Ridge State Park: Jim Sirch, a wonderful educator and guide, led an autumn nature walk this month along Baldwin Drive. This hike was co-sponsored with the Hamden Land Conservation Trust, West Rock Ridge Park Association, West River Watershed Coalition, and the Connecticut Fund for the Environment/Save the Sound. We are grateful to work together with these partner organizations, and we are grateful to Jim for sharing his knowledge and his love of nature. Barrie Collins’ article (page 2) reminds us that we have this park because ordinary citizens saw the value of preserving the land and persuaded the state legislature to create the park and its conservation area. The task remains ongoing; as parcels within the park’s conservation area come up for sale, it is essential that the state acquire the parcels that are essential to the park’s integrity, and essential that we all advocate for our park. There is lots of history to be found – and researched – in this park: see Tom Ebersold’s article (pages 3-4) about the Margaret Fisher fireplace in the Westville area of the park – and then enjoy a hike to see it yourself! Steve Broker’s article (pages 5-6) highlights the joys of an autumn day in the park – exploring by kayak, identifying birds, plants, animals, seeing favorite areas from a different vantage point. Tom Ebersold leads hikes and organizes trail maintenance gatherings, to share his love of the park and ensure that the trails are at their best for all to enjoy. See his remembrances (page 7) and trail report (page 9). And we are grateful to Park Supervisor Jill Scheibenpflug and her team for their work maintaining our park! --Ted (Theodore B.) Lynn Ridgelines, Fall 2019 The Lost Lot - and a Bit of Park History By Barrie Collins The state DEEP recently decided not to acquire Lot #44 on Brooks Rd. in Bethany, one of the last of two available in the state park's Conservation Area in that town. It lies between the steep western wall of the ridge itself and a scenically designated town road. Regional water company land lies on the opposite side of the road. The department felt the lot had no significant benefit to water quality protection and did not contain any endangered/threatened wildlife. The parcel is currently for residential sale. The regional water company bought the other parcel. While we all recognize the financial strain of land acquisitions, especially in today's world, there has never been a good or easy time to buy or think long-term in regard to land. What we have today is it. A brief review of how the citizens of the four towns in which the park is located created the park over many decades is a story worth recalling. It is indeed a true people's park in terms of imagination, determination, hard work and dogged persistence through multiple petitions, public hearing attendance time (even some lack of understanding of residential zoning value initially) and constant legislator contacts. In the early 1970s the city of New Haven owned the West Rock Park, which included Baldwin Parkway along the ridge, constructed by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in the 1930s. But in the 1960s, what grew in the imaginations of Dr. William Doheny of Hamden, ecologist Dr. Stephen Collins of Bethany and Peter Cooper, a conservation lawyer in Woodbridge, was the possibility of creating a regional park, whereby their towns and New Haven would come together as a larger entity. The three men, all active in their own town's conservation activities (and "young whippersnappers" in Cooper's words) had important local considerations in mind: Hamden concerned with the threat of overdevelopment with sewers near the ridge; Bethany with a break in residential zoning with a 1,000 ft commercial TV tower application at the north end; and Woodbridge, protection of adjoining historic and farmland areas and Konold's Pond. All three saw the potential for an exciting state park. Cooper provided the legal framework of the legislation for a state park, delineating an overall Conservation Area to the nearest road in each town. The legislation provided that every time land within the Conservation Area came up for sale, the state would have right of first refusal to buy it on the same terms (after a review) to be added to the park system. The legislation also established an advisory council of three representatives from each of the four towns. After three years of trying, the park legislation passed the General Assembly unanimously, but was vetoed by Governor Ella Grasso, apparently under pressure from state park officials concerned with the creation of a local advisory panel for the first time. (Today, it is still the only CT state park with such an advisory council!) Upset by the veto, park supporters in the four towns again pressured legislators, who passed the park's creation over the veto unanimously on July 21, 1975. The overall effort, from preliminary study to final legislation, took over ten years. As a result of the creation of the park, the lands protected have incrementally increased from New Haven's 800+ acres to about 1,800 acres. Today, the park is second largest in CT and has the second largest concentration of rare and endangered species of any park in the state. The advisory council continues to focus the state's attention on the importance of protecting the integrity of the existing natural areas in the Conservation Area, with the knowledge that any development not only impacts the area developed, but pushes back the core forest for at-risk species which are dependent on a buffer space between them and human habitation. Each parcel currently in its natural state, if converted to residential development, creates a hole, not only in the parcel developed, but also pushes back the boundaries of the core forest of the conservation area. Each parcel is part of a design of conservation and is intended to be analyzed for its importance as part of the whole. Largely the legislation has worked, but sometimes it does not. West Rock Ramblers, a recently-founded trail running group, has a Saturday run most weeks from Lake Wintergreen (usually 8 a.m. start at the parking lot), and often a Sunday run. If you’d like to join in, please join the “West Rock Ramblers” Facebook group (no cost, no obligations, just a forum for communication). 2 Ridgelines, Fall 2019 Margaret Fisher Memorial Fireplace By Tom Ebersold Along the West River in West Rock Ridge State Park, a short distance north of Amrhyn Field in Westville, is a neglected stone structure about 10 feet wide and five feet tall at its highest point. The structure has no identifying information to offer any clues about its identity and purpose. The center section is the tallest, flanked by side walls about three feet tall, which, in turn, are framed by a lower wall about two feet tall, finally ending at both sides with a stone wall about one feet high. Extending from the center section is a stone platform. From the river side of the structure, the walls are somewhat higher because the ground slopes toward the water. I discovered the first details when I came across (and purchased) a postcard entitled ““Margaret Fisher Memorial Fireplace, West Rock Park”, which shows the fireplace with a person dressed as an Indian kneeling in front of it. The back of the postcard, which has a postmark of Aug. 11, 1944, describes the park, not the fireplace. Fireplace Discussed in Park Board Minutes The postcard told me the name of the fireplace, but left me wondering, “Who was Margaret Fisher and why did they build a fireplace in her memory?” The answer came much later as I was reading through the past minutes for the New Haven Board of Park Commissioners. At the April 8, 1921 meeting, it was reported, “The West Rock Park Committee submitted a sketch with plan and specifications for the erection of the Fisher Memorial Fireplace by the Campfire Girls of New Haven. It was voted that the report of the Committee be approved and permission granted to erect the fire-place on the site proposed.” As part of his monthly report on June 10, 1921, Park Superintendent Gustave X.
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