The conservancy hired Arcadis to perform a $600,000 study of the lower cove as the first phase of a full restoration process. The study was largely funded by grants, including nearly $400,000 from the Long Island Sound Futures Fund, $40,000 from the Community Foundation of Eastern Connecticut and $10,000 from the Long Island Sound Stewardship Fund.

“You gotta get the studies done before you can get the money to alter the cove,” Lamoureux explained at the start of the presentation. “We hired the best environmental firm on the planet.”

Doug Partridge, an ecologist on the Arcadis team who is an expert in nature-based solutions, said projected sea level rise of more than 3 feet by 2070 complicated the situation at Alewife Cove, which is home to delicate coastal marshes. He said this will likely result in the need for continued maintenance dredging following the recommended one-channel solution to the cove’s water-flow issues that started in 2012 after Superstorm Sandy devastated the area.

Other recommendations of the Arcadis team included stabilizing the shoreline behind the Ocean Beach jetty, the use of strategically-located sediment traps and the implementation of thin-layer deposition using material from the cove as well as a plan for managed marsh migration. 

No changes to the jetties are recommended, but Arcadis does think that the area to the side of Ocean Beach near the stone breakwater will need some work to fight erosion that has occurred in recent years.

“Now we have a direction,” said Joseph Lanzafame, New London’s public utilities director and a member of the project team, after the presentation.

He added that dredging of the cove needs to get back to a regular schedule to ensure its survival long term. Others hoped dredging would result in the restoration of blue crabs, clams, oysters, trout and alewife fish that once made the area a top fishing and boating location.

“You will still have maintenance dredging in the sense that you will need to go in and take sediment out, but it won’t be maintenance dredging of the entire channel,” Carlson said. “It’ll be more targeted, it’ll be less frequent and less costly.”

The meeting Thursday was a follow-up to a previous presentation in March at which Arcadis met with residents to get their thoughts on cove priorities. Emily Carlson, Arcadis project manager, said her team started by collecting reams of data and then moved on to explore mitigation of sediment blocking the cove, promotion of tidal flushing, improving the resilience of habitats, improving the boating and paddling experience of visitors, supporting tourism by boosting the overall beach experience and improving water quality.

Computer models were then used to forecast sea level rise, the effect of extreme weather events and ecosystem response to mitigation efforts. The Arcadia team then analyzed the three initial proposed solutions to Alewife Cove problems and then took some of the best ideas from each grouping and came up with a preferred alternative that its members now agree will be even more effective than any of these original plans.

The presentation Thursday did not look at the upper cove area, which will have to be addressed in subsequent studies. This will include the effects of dredging on homeowners who live in the upper cove and have seawalls that could potentially be affected by stronger water flows, Arcadis officials said.

“We needed to start somewhere,” Lamoureux said. “Unless you’ve had these studies, forget about it.”

“We’re trying to put together an actionable plan, something that’s realistic, something that’s high value,” added Lanzafame. “I think those types of projects tend to get funded more and also subsequent projects tend to get funded more.”

The key, he said, is to spread out the funding requests and go back to the original funders, as they will see value in seeing the project to its conclusion.

“It’s not a one-and-done,” he said. “It’s a long-term, strategically thought-out process.”

Next steps, according to Arcadis, include arranging funding and designing and getting permits for the preferred Alewife Cove solution. The various plans to dredge the waterway and avoid loss of marshland while fighting erosion will then be implemented in a phased process. Finally, the proven processes implemented in the lower cove near Ocean Beach will then be used to continue the anticipated success in the upper areas of the waterway.

The upper cove already has been subject to some preliminary studies that have shown no major problem with heavy metals. That means the upper waterway can be dredged without worries about finding a place to deposit the sediment.

“The good news is,” Lamoureux smiled, “they didn’t find Jimmy Hoffa buried in there.”

"We've got the best environmental team in the world to work with us," said Ed Lamoureux, chairman of the Alewife Cove Conservancy, a nonprofit started to restore the waterway that once teemed with fish and shellfish but which has been choked by sediment in recent years. "Who doesn't love Alewife Cove?"

The conservancy raised $600,000 to conduct extensive studies of the cove and develop proposed solutions. Emily Carlson, Arcadis project manager, said her team started by collecting needed data and is currently at the stage of analyzing the information and engaging with local residents to develop a preferred solution.

Some of Arcadis' goals include the mitigation of sediment blocking the cove, promotion of tidal flushing, improving the resilience of habitats, improving the boating and paddling experience of visitors, supporting tourism by boosting the overall beach experience and improving water quality. Now that most of the data has been collected, the engineering firm plans to use computational models to forecast sea level rise, the effect of extreme weather events and ecosystem response to mitigation efforts.

Joseph Lanzafame, New London’s public utilities director and a member of the project team, said that in the past an Alewife Cove solution would be to rip out the sand and sediment that has choked off the water flow.

"That's not always the best long-term solution; you can be causing more problems than you're solving," he said. "We are trying to think of this like a master plan... so that we are maybe doing surgical dredging. There are other options we have to think about, and it is a long-term process."

Waterford resident Bud Bray said he was concerned about dredging potentially resulting in toxic metals and chemicals being exposed, but Lamoureux said sampling at the cove had shown little problem with toxicity in the area. He added that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had approved of a previous cove dredging project in 1987, so there is precedence for getting government approvals if such a project is undertaken.

"We still haven't got to that part," added Doug Partridge, an ecologist on the Arcadis team, pointing out that the firm had yet to make a recommendation.

But the Arcadis team laid out three different alternatives for the restoration of lower Alewife Cove, and all of them mentioned dredging as part of the solution. The alternatives are not set in stone, however, and could be combined in different ways, project team members agreed.

Options for cove restoration will be evaluated for their effectiveness and feasibility (whether permits could be approved) as well as for the environmental benefits and cost-effectiveness.

Another workshop will be held for community members this summer once Arcadis is ready to propose its preferred solution to restoring Alewife Cove. A timeline proposed by Arcadis shows that the next few years would be taken up by funding, designing and permitting for the required engineering work, with the work being completed in phases starting in 2029.

l.howard@theday.com

Alewife Cove Gets Earth Day Boost

By Lee Howard

Day Business Editor

The Day, New London, CT — Just a few days before Earth Day on Tuesday, the Alewife Cove restoration project got some good news.   Sediment samples show the waterway, once teeming with fish and shellfish but now heavily silted, has generally low levels of heavy metals and other contaminants, which could mean its revival as a fishing and recreation mecca is an achievable goal. 

"We come out looking real good. ... We were tickled pink with the results," said Ed Lamoureux, chairman of the Alewife Cove Conservancy, the New London-based group that has been leading the charge in the cove's restoration efforts. "The studies are the key. Everyone is committed to getting this done." 

Longtime residents near Alewife Cove, including Lamoureux, recall a time more than 20 years ago when the area was enjoyed by kayakers, swimmers and fishermen and the lower cove was a place to harvest oysters, blue crabs and clams. Now, there are no shellfish to be found, and the alewife that once spawned by the thousands in the spring and gave the waterway its name, have pretty much disappeared. 

Kayakers, even at high tide, regularly get stuck in the sand that prevents fish from swimming upstream. "I used to come out here with an aluminum boat," Lamoureux recalled Tuesday, wearing an Earth Day Tshirt while showing off the lower part of the cove at low tide. "It would be loaded with unbelievable blue shell crabs. I can dream about going right there and just scooping them and having bushel baskets full." 

"Now you see no blue shell crabs in here. No alewife fish, no winter flounder," Lamoureux said. 

The sediment study aims to jump-start the process of bringing back the fish that once flourished and where alewife had lived for hundreds of years. The cove had slowly been filling in over the years, but it was the double whammy of Hurricane Irene in 2011 followed by the more severe Superstorm Sandy damage in 2012 that put it into a major tailspin. 

Results of a $50,000 sediment study by Arcadis Environmental, the first of many steps in restoring the cove, were released last week, showing that heavy metals and plastic pollution from the so-called "forever chemical" PFAS have not infiltrated the area in large quantities. This means that dredging the cove will be possible without incurring large expenses, since the few areas that do show contamination are just over the threshold and can be treated, said Chris Allan, environmental director for the conservancy.

Black muck

The cove and Fenger Brook that feeds it divides Waterford and New London as well as Ocean Beach and Waterford Beach. In a previous restoration project in 1987, sand clogging up the cove was redeposited at Ocean Beach Park, Allan said, and he expected this could be where the material ends up this time as well. 

"A lot of it is predicated on what you can get a permit for," Allan said, adding the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection will be consulted for approvals. 

He and Lamoureux said the nasty-smelling sapropel or so-called "black mayonnaise" caused by stagnant water in the upper part of the cove is another issue that must be dealt with. They believe the most likely scenario will be relocating the mucky material to the lower cove's marshlands in an effort to combat sea level rise while adding lime and oyster shells to reduce its acidity. 

But cove restoration is still years away, as the conservancy awaits results from other studies, including a major one by Arcadis that will develop several options for restoring Alewife Cove. What ends up happening, in the end, may depend on projected costs as well as how much funding can be raised, cove leaders said. 

"Cost is probably the biggest obstacle," Allan said. 

The Alewife Cove Conservancy, formed as a nonprofit in 2016, has the goal of protecting, preserving and enhancing the cove. It hosts an annual fundraiser at Ocean Beach in November and each year offers annual scholarships to an environmental studies student in New London and Waterford high schools. It also hosts school students from around the region who are studying marshes and marine life, including those from New England Science & Sailing, which has a location at Ocean Beach. 

Cove restoration studies are being funded by several sources, and the sediment sampling was paid for by the Community Foundation of Eastern Connecticut and the New York Community Trust (formerly the Long Island Sound Stewardship Fund). But the effort to bring back Alewife Cove coincides with the beginning of a presidential administration that has consistently downplayed the effects of climate change and is canceling funding for several environmental programs while reducing the number of oversight positions at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The canceling of some federal funding funneled through the EPA has cove proponents nervous, they said, as a nearly $400,000 grant to come up with long-term solutions came from the Long Island Sound Futures Fund, which in turn gets its funding from the U.S. Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. But they were hopeful the funding will come through. 

"We definitely have concerns," said Joe Lanzafame, director of the New London utilities department, who Lamoureux said has been a key person in helping secure grants for the cove project. 

Lanzafame in turn praised Lamoureux and others from the Alewife Cove Conservancy, saying Tuesday "Those guys are really a phenomenal group of people," and that work to restore the waterway is "long overdue." 

Lanzafame said the city is hoping to see the proper water flow brought back to the area while ensuring that the cost is kept at a minimum. 

"We're hoping this project brings life back to that area," he said in a phone interview. "It's a gem."

l.howard@theday.com