Restoring the Rippowam

Perhaps no single river in lower Fairfield County encompasses so much of the variety of challenges and opportunities facing our local rivers as the Rippowam:

Beginning far north in Westchester County, NY, the entire upper Rippowam watershed is encompassed by large tracts of open space - both water company lands and town, county, state and land trust open space properties and preserves. This network of protected forests and fields surrounding the various tributaries of the Rippowam provide it with an abundant supply of clean and cold water and host a healthy population of native Brook Trout.

After exiting the drinking water reservoir system, however the Rippowam and Mill Rivers merge, flowing through residential communities where they pick up pollutants like road sand, fertilizer, pesticides and more, reducing the water quality and the habitat quality.

South of the Merritt Parkway, the river flows into some of the densest urban development in the region with the significant paved areas adding warm and polluted stormwater runoff, especially during summer thunderstorms.

Tune in to learn about our ongoing restoration strategy for the Rippowam River, studying, preserving and protecting the habitat stronghold in the headwaters, improving the riparian buffers through the suburban communities in the mid-sections of the river and developing sophisticated and large-scale stormwater management systems in the urban and industrial waterfront areas.