The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) has yet to issue permits for the North Brook Trail and First Selectman Matt Riiska is getting ready this week to hit his “nastygram button.”
It has been more than a year since the town Rails to Trails Committee submitted its design to DEEP; the town expected to start work last fall and open the trail this year.
“We submitted our plans in June 2024 and didn’t hear back until January 2025,” said Riiska. And when they did hear, things had become more complicated.
Although the town was awarded a $399,725 Recreational Trails Program grant in May 2023, the town has yet to receive any of the money. The grant then represented about 80 percent of the total cost of construction, which was been estimated at $500,000. The balance is to be covered by grants, donations and in-kind services.
“They (DEEP) have been dancing around the subject ever since,” said Riiska. “Everything was approved and then the office of Land Acquisition and Management found items they wanted us to look into. They wanted it designed [to accommodate] a 500-year flood. The money has been sitting there since 2023—you have to wonder what its value will be in 2025.”
The proposed trail traverses wetlands and has several beaver dams that create pools of standing water. A 150-foot-boardwalk, constructed of pressure-treated lumber, was planned to span the pools, but Robert Gilchrest, committee chairman, drafted revised plans, proactively extending the handicap-accessible trail and raising it by six inches.
Two months ago, Gilchrest said he had finally heard from the director of land management, who promised to coordinate the process and get back to him. Nothing has transpired since, despite a letter from Riiska to the DEEP Commissioner.
The Rails-to-Trails Committee has labored for more than a decade to bring the trail to fruition.