Home Care In Colebrook, CT

Environmentalists have reached an agreement with a regional water commission to ensure that 5,500 acres of land in northwestern Connecticut and Massachusetts remains undeveloped.

The deal is a major victory for conservationists. It would keep the land open for the public and averts development on a critical piece of land that feeds into the Farmington River.

“The lands ... are extraordinarily beautiful and unlike landscapes that you see in most of Connecticut,” said Catherine Rawson, executive director of the Northwest Connecticut Land Conservancy (NCLC).

The future of the land was called into question after the Metropolitan District Commission (MDC) announced it wanted to give up some of its rights to store water in the Colebrook Reservoir — citing costs to maintain aging infrastructure. That deal is still pending before state officials.

The Colebrook Reservoir is massive, holding billions of gallons of water. To keep it clean, strict rules govern nearby development. But if state regulators approve the MDC's "abandonment permit" for the area, those watershed protections could go away, potentially opening the door for development.

On Tuesday, the NCLC and Save the Sound said they reached a memorandum of understanding with the MDC to negotiate a conservation easement on the approximately 5,500 acres, which includes 4,300 acres in Connecticut and about 1,200 acres in Massachusetts.

The history of the Colebrook River Reservoir and its surrounding land stretches back decades.

The reservoir began operations in 1969. It was built mainly as a flood control dam following historic floods from back-to-back hurricanes in August of 1955 that left 77 Connecticut residents dead.

Under a contract between the MDC and the the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the MDC would have had 3.5 billion gallons of storage in Colebrook Reservoir, along with 10 billion gallons of stored emergency drinking water.

But since that contract was signed in 1969, the 10 billion gallons of emergency drinking water supply has never been used, according to the MDC.

The agency says there is no infrastructure for this water to be transported into MDC’s drinking water supply system, which comes from the Barkhamsted and Nepaug Reservoirs. It also says payments to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to maintain the Colebrook dam outweigh the benefits to ratepayers.

While local leaders agree, nearby residents have stressed the area's critical importance to local ecosystems and their desire to see it remain undeveloped.

“It is important to note that each of the four Colebrook Reservoir towns — Barkhamsted, Colebrook, New Hartford, and Hartland — have submitted letters of support of the MDC’s abandonment application," Scott Jellison, MDC chief executive officer, said in a statement. "For decades, these towns and their residents have partnered with the MDC and its staff in ensuring that the land surrounding the Colebrook Reservoir is maintained as a protected watershed and available for passive recreation."

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Under the deal, the land conservancy will pay the MDC $1 million for the development rights to the land, if the water agency is allowed by the state Department of Public Health to give up the water storage permit.

NCLC would purchase a conservation easement on 5,500 acres of MDC-owned land. MDC will be permitted to continue its existing uses of the property. New public access to the property will be allowed for hunting, fishing, hiking, and boating, subject to NCLC and state approval.

Residential, industrial, commercial and other forms of development would not be allowed.

If finalized, environmentalists said the deal would be the biggest area of land to be preserved in Connecticut since an agreement was reached to conserve Aquarion Water Company property two decades ago. According to Save the Sound, water companies are the second largest owners of open space in the state.

NCLC's Rawson said preserving the land is a key win for the state's residents, its animals and its ecology

“It's a really monumentally beautiful landscape, with steep forested slopes, cool clean rivers, and abundant habitat for both rare species and migratory species,” Rawson said.

This story is a production of the New England News Collaborative. It was originally published by Connecticut Public.

Colebrook, Connecticut, is a quintessential New England small town and its environs resemble a never-ending Norman Rockwell painting, complete with verdant hills, winding back roads, colorful locals, a bevy of black bears, and good fishing.

Yet, there is something outsize in Colebrook — a 223-foot-high behemoth dam located on the west branch of the Farmington River. The structure, which took workers four years to build, is 1,300 feet long and holds back a 750-acre lake.

Despite being one of the smallest states, Connecticut overflows with 5,800 miles of rivers and streams. Some are Lilliputian, such as the Pomperaug River, which meanders through parts of western Connecticut. Others, like the Connecticut, Farmington, Housatonic, and Thames, are significantly larger.

Over the decades, workers built 4,000 dams to stop water from these waterways from flooding towns and cities. While some are quite large, nothing compares to Connecticut’s largest dam — the Colebrook River Lake Dam.

To understand why engineers built the Colebrook Dam, let’s go back to 1955 when two angry sisters, Connie and Diane, unleashed a fearsome one-two punch that left the state bloodied, battered, and flooded. Connie and Diane were back-to-back hurricanes that cut a violent swath up the East Coast, dumping copious amounts of water from the Carolinas into New England.

Hurricane Connie was the first to strike. She roared to life in early August as a tropical Atlantic storm, crashing ashore as a hurricane on August 12 in North Carolina. Connie followed a northwesterly path ripping through Pennsylvania. While portions of New Jersey and the Keystone State suffered most of Connie’s rage, Southern New England, which includes Connecticut, saw around eight inches of rain.

For many in Connecticut, especially farmers, Connie was welcomed relief. It had been a dry summer. Little did anyone know Connie was the first act of a bloody two-act play. She paved the way for a more disastrous hurricane — Diane.

Diane made landfall in North Carolina on August 17. The next day, the storm moved northward across Virginia, made a sharp right turn over Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and headed back toward the Atlantic. As Diane spun, it skirted Long Island and New England’s southern coast, leaving untold devastation in her wake as she unleashed up to 20 inches of rain.

Connie had already saturated the ground, which meant the surrounding landscape could not hold any more water. The result was major flooding across the region. Waterways jumped their banks chiseling out the sides of hills and tearing roadways across Southern New England and New York.

In Connecticut, the Farmington, Housatonic, Shepaug, Naugatuck, and Madd rivers, among others, flooded entire towns and cities. At the headwaters of the Farmington River, Diane deposited 18 inches of rain in 24 hours, a record for New England. The ’55 Flood, as people now remember it, killed 200 people, including 74 in Connecticut.

The destruction wrought by Connie and Diane forced officials to rethink Connecticut’s flood control projects. As a result, workers throughout the 1950s and 1960s built a number of dams. The Colebrook Dam was the largest.

Workers began building the dam in May 1965 and finished in 1969. The price was $14.3 million. The dam itself is earthfill, which means engineers built it using layers of earth and rock.

Over the years, the dam has served the community well. It has substantially reduced flooding on the Farmington River’s west branch and downstream along the Connecticut River. The dam also created an impoundment lake, the level of which can vary wildly.

The lake generally covers 750 acres, yet when full, it can balloon to 1,185, according to the Corp of Engineers. The Corps can regulate the amount of water by lowering or raising three gates. When water levels run high, the gates are lowered. When the water level runs low, the gates are raised.

In addition to minimizing the risk of flooding downstream, Colebrook Lake also serves as a water supply for the Hartford Metropolitan Water District. The lake is also a fisher’s paradise. The lake is dotted with ice fishermen every winter.

Both Massachusetts and Connecticut stock trout and salmon during the spring. Still, many native species like bass, pickerel, perch, and bluegill ply the lake’s water. A number of landlubbing animals, specifically deer, black bears, beavers, and muskrats, among others, live near the dam, as do birds such as herons, snow geese, and ducks.

The photo featured at the top of this post is © SevenMaps/Shutterstock.com

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COLEBROOK, CT (WFSB) - The National Weather Service confirmed a tornado touched down in northern Litchfield County Thursday.

The tornado started at 6:35 p.m. in Norfolk about 2 miles south of Dennis Hill State Park, the NWS said.

The NWS said it ended around 6:50 p.m. in Colebrook.

It had a maximum width of 300 yards and traveled for 5 miles with peak wind speeds of 75 m.p.h., said the NWS.

The NWS rated it as an EF-0 tornado.

Nobody was injured.

The tornado caused fallen trees and broken branches.

State troopers said they got reports of heavy winds and trees down in the area of Millbrook Road and Route 44, at the Winsted line.

There were no road closures.

“A couple of barns along Pinney Street lost some siding and one of the barns had a door torn off,” said the NWS.

Channel 3 viewer Justin Parizo spotted the tornado while at Dennis Hill in Norfolk Thursday evening.

Parizo talked to Eyewitness News about what he saw.

He said when he saw that the storm was close, he decided to go to Dennis Hill with his girlfriend to watch the funnel cloud form.

“I mean, it was a once in a lifetime experience being in Connecticut, I mean, it was pretty incredible,” Parizo said. “We couldn’t believe what we were seeing.”

Others got a firsthand look from their backyard.

“It was spinning around. All the trees and leaves were blowing, sky turned black and then within a minute it was gone,” said John Meehan of Colebrooke.

John Meehan says next thing he knew, trees were down and power was out as the tornado ripped through.

Just a mile away, neighbors say they had no idea there even was a tornado.

“I found out about 5 minutes ago and it was literally that. ‘We had a tornado? Really? When?’” said Jason Mikolajcik of Colebrooke.

Jason, Ali, and their dog, Monkey, say they’re not stranger to tornados.

“We used to live in Texas and tornados happened a lot,” said Ali.

Not everyone has tornado experience. Channel 3 meteorologist Connor Lewis gives us some tips if you’re in a dangerous tornado situation.

“This is a good reminder that life threatening weather can occur in CT and there are steps to take to make sure that you’re being safe like staying in the interior of your home, listening to our weather reports, and really the best way to find out as quickly as possible is with our app or watching us on television,” said Lewis.

Channel 3 meteorologist Connor Lewis explained why a tornado warning was not issued Thursday evening.

Often rotating storms or severe thunderstorms in New England are shallow and short.

This part of the state is in a poor radar coverage area, meaning our radar will only be able to scan 6000 feet above the ground.

“It was kind of the perfect storm to get this one little cell in Litchfield county able to rotate and then with a lowering funnel cloud, there was a brief spin up tornado, that EF-0 tornado had wind gusts up to 75 miles per hour,” said meteorologist Connor Lewis.

Colebrook is between Albany, Boston, and New York’s radars.

Tornado vortex signatures are going to be much lower than 6000 feet so neither Channel 3 nor the National Weather Service would have been able to detect the tornado.

Copyright 2022 WFSB. All rights reserved.

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COLEBROOK — In her 22 years of teaching at Colebrook Consolidated School, Sylvia Crunden often has taught the youngest students.

One lesson the first-grade teacher long has been trying to teach those students is to respect each other’s personal space. But something was missing, she said.

“That’s kind of where I was feeling I was missing a book to teach them how to stay in their own space,” Crunden said. “They really don’t get that until you give them a visual.”

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So Crunden, an Avon resident who already had written one children’s book, “Bullying is Never Okay,” stopped searching and wrote it herself.

Conceptualized and written before the COVID-19 pandemic, Crunden’s book — “Please Don’t Pop My Bubble” — became even more timely once social distancing and keeping space between one another was a factor in helping to prevent COVID outbreaks in her classrooms.

The results, she said, are evident when she hears students in other classrooms and hallways of her school referencing the phrase that makes up the title of the book.

“It works really well,” Crunden said. “The kindergarten teacher, I can hear the kids saying the phrase, ‘You’re in my bubble,’ instead of yelling at them or pushing at them. It gives them a phrase. I wanted to give them something to say that isn’t mean.”

Like her book about bullying, Crunden said it was important to have good illustrations that helped pass a message and lesson along to the young learners. She worked with illustrator Mary Ransom on both books.

“When I’m looking for books, depending on what I’m looking for, if I’m looking for a lesson, ‘does it give a visual to the kids?” Crunden said. “Because the kids are so young you don’t want it to be too long. You want it to hold their interest. Sometimes you pick a book because of the illustrations.”

In Ransom’s work, Crunden said she appreciates how expressive her characters are.

“I wanted the expressions on the character’s faces — in the bullying book, when he gets mad, his face gets red — and also what the body does,” Crunden said. “His hands are sweaty. In the bubble book, he gets frustrated because he keeps getting in his space … but he doesn’t realize he’s in his space.”

Crunden said she hopes her books teach the youngest kids in her school, and elsehwere, a few social skills.

“Sometimes kids bully because they don’t know how to express themselves,” Crunden said. “I wanted more resources for social skills for the kids. With COVID and everything, kids need to learn social skills. My hope is that not just my kids, but other kids who have the book, will benefit from this and learn social skills.”

Both of Crunden’s books are available to purchase on her website, sylviacrunden.com.

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TORRINGTON - What happens when a self-taught muralist with spray paint and a graffiti pen joins a gym with hundreds of square feet of blank walls?

A recreation of the workout space, that’s what.

Colebrook residents Marina Diaz and her partner, Jason Mikolajcik, joined Nautilus Plus Fitness at 789 Winsted Road this past winter. Dan Bergeron, the facility’s personal trainer, learned that Diaz had done murals at big box stores and other places. He approached Bruce Kasenetz, co-owner of the facility, with the idea that Diaz paint murals there.

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Then, Kasenetz met with Diaz. “We got to talking, and we kind of collaborated on some of the ideas that she thought might enhance the facility,” he said. “We were just looking to create a better atmosphere.”

They agreed that she would paint a mural on a wall in the entryway. If Kasenetz liked it, she would pitch more designs for a bigger wall.

He asked what the entryway mural would look like. She asked him to trust her.

“She wouldn’t tell me. She told me, ‘I’m gonna do one. Is it OK if I do it?’ I said, ‘Do you think maybe I should know what it is?’ She said, ‘No, it’s a surprise,’” remembered Kasenetz - known to most as “Coach” because of his years teaching physical education at Torrington High School. So, he took the chance.

The completed 125-square-foot mural features a 16-foot-wide American flag with the words “Nautilus Plus Fitness” and a barbell bent down by its own weight. “Est. 1975” is in a small oval.

“I came up with this design under wraps without Coach knowing,” Diaz said. “The logo’s in the center, but it’s a family, like a good old American family.”

Kasenetz liked it, of course. It’s the logo he created years ago, one he wears on a blue-and-white T-shirt. As agreed, they met to discuss another mural for the larger wall in the gym.

Diaz took photos of the wall with her iPad. Using a design program, she was able to create a virtual design of her idea to show Kasenetz.

“The first two didn’t cater to his image of what this business is, and then I said, ‘Let me go home and kind of get some ideas,.’” she said. She also talked to some of the other clientele, who suggested showing images of a strong arm with a fist, a woman power lifting, a man lifting dumbbells, and a runner.

“When we had talked about what Nautilus is, it’s not your traditional corporate gym,” Diaz said. “This is a true home setting that caters to the clientele. You have your moms; you have your elderly people trying to stay in shape; you have your young kids coming out of high school; and you have us, who are middle-aged. They’re really catering to everybody.”

The finished mural, with an electric black and blue, spray-painted background, depicts all these themes, she said. The four main images and hundreds of sharp triangles are made with a bright white graffiti pen in a sort of connect-the-dots concept, reminiscent of constellations on a star chart. It completely covers a long wall just inside the gym, an area of nearly 400 square feet.

Diaz and Mikolajcik worked night after night, putting in more than 50 hours, moving machines out of the way and then moving them back before the sun came up.

“We picked them up and we put them down,” she said. “It’s a good thing we come to the gym.”

Diaz has no formal art training. She worked 14 years in upper management for big box stores, working 70 hours a week.

“I was very good at my job, and I did love my job, but I wasn’t passionate about it,” she said.

With encouragement from Mikolajcik, she left corporate America to pursue her art.

“I think the only positive thing that came out of COVID was that a lot of entrepreneurs and a lot of artists dropped their corporate jobs and pushed forward with their dreams,” she said. “And having him (Mikolajcik) as my cheerleader in the background, he helped me make that final decision.”

Mikolajcik is a retired Marine veteran with a Purple Heart, she said. He served in Iraq and was injured in Fallujah . They have two children.

He also helped with the logo in the entrance, she said. “We did it in one night after hours. He keeps me on point and on schedule.”

Kasenetz opened Nautilus Plus with business partner Fran DuCotey in 1975 on lower East Main Street, he said. They moved briefly to Water Street before moving to their present location about 25 years ago. The 10,000-square-foot space includes a 2,000-square-foot expansion completed in 2008.

Kasenetz said, ““Despite the change in the climate in the fitness industry because of the COVID situation, we still continue to offer that same workout environment we started 47 years ago. We are proud of that, obviously. We have bought new equipment and a lot of expansion, but we still offer that same hometown atmosphere to the people who are looking for that. Still today, we are getting new members.”

When he was teaching at Torrington High School, he helped develop a fitness center there, he said. He was one of the first to open a Nautilus facility in Connecticut, he said.

For more images by Marina Diaz, see rawartists.com/twistedrootsart. For information about Nautilus Plus Fitness, go to www.nautilusplusfitness.com/ or call 860-489-4929.