When you think of Stamford, a salt marsh probably is not the first thing that comes to mind. But here in Boccuzzi Park, about two acres of marshland are surrounded by office buildings and apartment complexes — a little wildlife oasis tucked inside urban life.
Katie Boback is leading a team of volunteers helping to protect this vital coastal ecosystem.
"We want to focus our efforts on removing as many of the seed heads as we can because last time we had a cutting event, some of you guys were here, there weren't those seeds. But today they're here, so we want to try to remove them before they spread more..."
Stamford-based SoundWaters promotes Long Island sound education and stewardship. Volunteers out here with the group today, suited up in waders, are looking to cut down the invasive phragmites. Boback says this tall reed with a bushy top it's not necessarily harmful of toxic, but it grows so aggressively and densely that it chokes out the areas native plants — bad for biodiversity.
"You've probably seen it around — it's all over in Connecticut. It can be on the edges of roadsides; any really disturbed area can cause an upset in the native species that are there and gives phragmites a great place to plant itself," she said. "Alongside rivers, alongside roads, and alongside where we previously had other salt marsh vegetation, we have a lot of phragmites."
Some of those natives are sea lavender and goldenrod — great for pollinators, salt hay — with long roots that anchor the marsh, and spike grass — habitat for waterfowl, to name a few.
But salt marshes face other threats, too, like erosion. And well, Connecticut is just really built out. The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection estimates the state has lost at least a third of its salt marshes and tidal wetlands since the colonial era. Connecticut has 250 coastal marshes today, and that covers about 12,000 acres, according to data from last year.
"And Stamford Harbor is one of the top three busiest ports. In Connecticut, and it's also very built up," said Boback. "So, if you look at an aerial view, like on Google Earth of Stamford Harbor, you're going to notice a lot of concrete, docks, piers, and seawalls where, you know, a couple of 100 years ago it might have been mostly dominated by marshes."
Thanks to efforts by SoundWaters and others, today we have a much better understanding of their value.
"There are lots of fish, birds, mammals, all that use marshes. A lot of commercially important species rely on marshes at some point in their life cycle. If there's no marshes, we don't have big game fish and all the things that humans enjoy using from our oceans and the Long Island Sound."
They also play an important role in flood mitigation. These areas can soak up storm surge like a sponge.
"When there's a bunch of Rain and runoff, they can absorb that water coming down from our cities. They can soak up pollution before it reaches the Long Island Sound or the ocean more broadly, and they just act as a buffer. They actually work better than man-made structures like a seawall, for example."
Boback says getting folks out in the marsh gives them a better appreciation for the wildlife here in our region.
"And it's a great chance for people in the neighborhood, in the community to get into a habitat that they might otherwise have just seen from a distance, or maybe thought was a little smelly, maybe a little buggy and tried to avoid! But a lot of the volunteers that have come through here, and students say they never knew this was right in their backyard."
Back in the marsh, volunteers are hard at work cutting down the invasives and picking up trash along the way. It's a family affair for Joanne Carpanzano, who often brings her grandchildren along. She is here with her granddaughter today.
"I think SoundWaters is such a strong presence in Stamford now, with all these opportunities to get involved — so that's what we've been doing," she said. "We do the beach cleanups, too. My grandson said to me before I headed out today, 'lots of cigarette butts!' You find the same trash everywhere you go."
Harriet Caruzi is a volunteer and a former teacher.
She used to bring her students here on field trips back in the day.
"Because to me, learning is outdoors," she said. "We would come down and, we split them up — half of them were surveying the beach and looking at the different organisms on the beach, studying them. And the other half of them would go out on the schooner. Then we flipped them, and while we were out on the schooner, we threw nets out and they loved it.
To to celebrate the end of the day, they had grills and their kids had, squid — they dissected squid and then we ate scungilli!"
Getting kids interested in the environment is really at the heart of what SoundWaters does. Christina Gentz is director of education.
"We start tomorrow in our ninth grade, and it's just really good to connect them with something they would not usually have access to," she said. "When they get out here, there's like a whole new world. I mean, even when we walked out here today we were like, this is right here in Stamford? Who would have thought. Everything we do is very hands-on. Your brain connects in a different way with science, especially when you're bettering your community and nature."
Meaning there is more reason than just a nice day by the water to go splashing around in a marsh — it's good for the environment and good for you, too.
This project was made possible thanks to funding from the EPA through Restore America's Estuaries and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. The views expressed do not necessarily represent the opinions or policies of these organizations.
