Indigenous people and Remington Woods

 

                          

By Reginald Johnson

 

   

  BRIDGEPORT, CT --- The Remington Woods open space tract --- zoned by the city for commercial and residential development --- may have been an area where indigenous people lived thousands of years ago.

  In the late 1990s, when development ideas for the woods were first discussed, then Connecticut State Archaeologist Nicholas Bellantoni did an assessment survey of the area. Bellantoni recommended that the 423-acre forest be preserved due to “archaeological sensitivity” and called for a full exploration and inventory of findings.

   That full exploration was never done and Bellantoni, now retired, could not be reached for extensive comment on his research. But local resident Jeff Kohut, who was in touch with Bellantoni at the time, said that the state official based his recommendation in good part on the discovery decades earlier of artifacts from a Native-American camp on land right next to Remington Woods.

  That land is where the Nob Hill Condominiums, on Nob Hill Circle in the northeast section of Bridgeport, now sit. Kohut said that ancient Indian artifacts were discovered during the construction of the condos just after World War II. The artifacts, dating to 7,000 years ago, indicated the presence of a camp and tool making site and “prolonged habitation.”

  “Unfortunately, the artifacts were discovered only after major disruption of the site/building had occurred, so a full assessment/reconstruction of the habitation by Native Americans was impossible,” said Kohut.

 Kohut said Bellantoni had also located 7,000-year old habitation sites in the Pequonnock River Valley in Trumbull, about 1 mile from Remington Woods. The Pequonnock River Valley is close to Church Hill Road and Daniels Farm Road.

  Kohut also noted that he had discovered ancient artifacts, including an arrowhead and ax head, on property in the Lake Forest area of Bridgeport, also about 1 mile from Remington Woods. The artifacts were authenticated by Bellantoni and also dated from 7,000 years ago.

  The current state archaeologist, Sarah Sportman, said that prior to the creation of a lake on the Remington property (Lake Success),  “there were streams and wetlands which likely made the area attractive to indigenous people.”

        

The lake at Remington Woods. Ancient indigenous artifacts were found nearby. 

  Currently, the property is owned by the Sporting Goods company, a subsidiary of Corteva Corporation, previously part of DuPont. The tract --- of which 347 acres are in Bridgeport and 76 acres in Stratford --- was once used by the Remington Arms company to test guns and ammunition. In recent years, there has been an EPA-monitored hazardous waste clean-up of the area.

  Sporting Goods officials are now mulling options for development of the site, following the city’s approval of a zoning designation of “Residential-Office” late last year.

  That approval came after dozens of people spoke out at a public hearing supporting the idea of preserving the woods as open space and as a wildlife refuge. Some speakers also raised the archaeological questions associated with the site and wondered why development would be allowed to go ahead with those questions unanswered. 

      

Artifacts dating to 7,000 years ago, found in the Lake Forest area, about a mile from Remington Woods.

  According to multiple histories of the southern Connecticut area, indigenous people, primarily the Paugussett tribe, inhabited the region for centuries if not millenia prior to the arrival of European settlers.

  “The Golden Hill Paugussett Tribe has been a part of Greater Bridgeport’s history from time immemorial,” said Charles Brilvitch, an historian and author of the book “A History of Connecticut’s Golden Hill Paugussett Tribe.”

  Brilvitch said the Paugussetts lived in a number of areas of what is now Bridgeport, Trumbull, Stratford and Fairfield. There were Paugussett villages in the area of Golden Hill Street and Elm Street in downtown Bridgeport; on land where Mountain Grove cemetery sits near the mouth of Ash Creek; and at the head of Johnson’s Creek near the Bridgeport-Stratford line, among other locations, he said.

      

Downtown Bridgeport, not far from City Hall. Centuries ago, the Golden Hill Paugussett Tribe had a village on this land. 

  After Dutch and English immigrants arrived in the 16^th and 17^th centuries, the Paugussetts were systematically driven off their land, either violently by settlers or by government decree. 

  Today, a small Paugussett tribe remains, with a quarter-acre reservation in Trumbull.

  A Paugussett leader said the tribe is in the beginning stages of finding out what’s going on at Remington Woods and what the Sporting Goods company has in mind.

  “We are planning on having a meeting with them so that our council and us can go to the land. We can talk, we can meet, we can see, get our questions out and see what they have to say before we can comment on anything,” said Shoran, the Clan Mother and Tribal Head Leader of the Golden Hill Paugussetts.

 

 

Remington Woods faces development

  

By Reginald Johnson 

     BRIDGEPORT ----- One of the region’s largest tracts of open space --- home to deer, turkey, fox and thousands of hardwood trees ---- could soon be commercially developed if city zoning officials give the go-ahead.

  The 347-acre Remington Woods tract, in the northeastern corner of the city, has sat largely untouched for decades since the Remington Arms company stopped using the forest to test-fire guns and ammunition.

  Now, a subsidiary of the Dupont Corporation, which owns Remington, wants to develop the site for corporate offices. The city’s zoning office in turn has offered a tentative plan to reezone the area as commercial.

 The Planning and Zoning Commission will hold a hearing on the rezoning plan at 6 pm on Tuesday. A decision on the proposal will likely be made after the hearing.

  A number of preservationists are expected to speak out against the plan, saying the loss of such a large amount of green space would be an environmental disaster.

  Lela Florel, of the group Preserve Remington Woods said that the rezoning plan would lead to the destruction of  “20,000 existing trees, the eco system, thousands of birds and other wildlife  (all wildlife populations are plummeting with extinctions raging).”

  Florel went on,  “It would destroy all the life services the forest community provides to the people. Like cleaning some of the dirtiest air in the country, cooling rapidly heating air, stabilizing local climate, sequestering carbon etc. These things are real and effect the physical and mental health of people all in a time when reforestation has finally become a national priority because of the climate catastrophe.”

   Florel’s group has collected 1,087 signatures mostly from Connecticut residents but from some around the world who want to save Remington Woods.

  “Almost all the people on the street we’ve talked to in Bridgeport and beyond are overwhelmingly for preserving the Woods,” she said.

   Also expected to lobby for protecting Remington Woods is the group Bridgeport Generation Now. “We want all 422 acres zoned as green space,” wrote the group on its website.

    The 422-acre figure is a reference to not only the Bridgeport tract but another nearly 80 acres that are just over the border line in Stratford, also owned by DuPont.

The lake at Remington Woods

   Meanwhile, one of Bridgeport’s top elected officials is complaining that the Bridgeport zoning office failed to tell him about pending changes in zoning for Remington Woods, when he made a general inquiry about zoning changes throughout the city in October.

  State Sen. Dennis Bradley, D-Bridgeport, said when he met with city officials including the director of planning, “there was no disclosure of the zoning plans surrounding Remington Woods.”

  “It is disparaging for the city and their respective department representatives to not disclose such a grave issue to an elected official,” complained Bradley in a letter to the Zoning Department dated November 12.

   Bradley said it is vital that the residents of Bridgeport have a voice and “buy-in” in major changes made to planning and zoning.

  “Although I am one to believe that development is a necessary endeavor to improve Bridgeport residents’ quality of life, I hold in higher regard transparency and an environmental justice approach to planning and zoning for our already limited green spaces,” he said. “I urge Zone Bridgeport and the city to reconsider their priorities and provide the community and their voices a larger stake in these conversations before plans are finalized,” Bradley said.

  (People can participate in the zoning hearing via Zoom. For more information go to preserveremingtonwoods.com)

      

 

Flooding Linked to Remington Woods Development

    BRIDGEPORT REPORT

By Reginald Johnson

   BRIDGEPORT ----- Environmental activists and a city council member say new construction in the Remington Woods forest may have triggered the historic flooding which destroyed cars and damaged homes in an East Side neighborhood earlier this month.

 Homes along Ohio Avenue and some nearby streets were hit by the massive flooding after two downpours on June 30 and July 3rd, said Councilwoman Maria Pereira, D-138.

   Flooding two to four feet deep engulfed cars and poured into basements, she said.

 “Two cars were totalled and two people had to be rescued by the fire department,” Pereira said. “The city engineer told me that in his 20 years working for the city, he had never seen anything like it.”

  Some homeowners have had to spend thousands of dollars to clean up, and in some cases, insurance companies are refusing to pay for the damage, the council member said.

   A meeting will take place Thursday at 5:30 pm in the Thomas Hooker School to give residents a chance to air their concerns about the flooding with city officials, Pereira said.

  The big mystery is what caused the flooding in the neighborhood, which is in the northeastern section of the city, off East Main Street. Oddly, Ohio Avenue, which crosses East Main Street, was only flooded on the eastern end. The western side of the street was untouched.

   Instead of faulty sewers causing the flooding, Pereira said the cause might be new construction at the Remington Woods tract which sits on the eastern end of the flooded area.

  “This does not appear to be raw sewage, but water with dirt and grit,” Pereira said of the overflow.

  The Remington Woods site --- 422 acres of mostly woods and a 22-acre lake ---- is owned by Corteva, a subsidiary of DuPont, the giant chemical corporation. Corteva is planning light industrial development for the area.

 In recent years, Corteva has been conducting an environmental clean-up of the tract, which contains munitions waste left by the Remington Arms company. The firearms company, now owned by DuPont, had a factory in Bridgeport and used to test its products at the woodlands site.

  Environmentalist Lela Florel is also suspicious that recent tree cutting and construction work in the woods may have sparked the unprecedented flooding. Florel points to the fact that Remington Woods is at a significantly higher elevation than streets such as Ohio Avenue. Ohio Avenue is at 49 feet above sea level, while Remington Woods sits at 62 feet to about 138 feet, she says.

 “The woods is high!” Florel said. “The water runs down. Either the Woods is left natural to absorb it, or the neighborhood floods,” Florel said.

  Pereira said construction of a dam on the site might also have been a contributing factor.

  Meanwhile, Florel, Pereira and others in the group “Preserve Remington Woods” are fighting a long-term battle to save Remington Woods from construction. The group is seeking to have the city change the zoning designation for the tract from light industrial to one “that specifies preservation of the entirety of the woods as a Nature Wildlife preserve.”

  Florel says the tract is an environmental gem --- home to deer, fox, eagles, turkey and thousands of large hardwood trees.

  She and the other advocates say it makes no sense to destroy the woods to make way for new industry, when Bridgeport has so many vacant buildings that can be redeveloped to provide the same thing.

 Already, the city has granted a wetlands permit to Corteva to proceed with development. Florel says full-scale construction work could begin by the end of the year, unless the zoning is changed.

    

  

Saving Remington Woods

  By Reginald Johnson    

    

   BRIDGEPORT --- It sits on the edge of the state’s most densely-populated city --- 422  acres of unspoiled woods and a beautiful 23-acre lake.

   It’s home to nesting eagles, deer, wild turkey and 70 species of birds.

   How many people have heard of Remington Woods?

   Not too many.

  “It’s Bridgeport’s best-kept secret,” says Lela Florel, a member of the group Preserve Remington Woods.

   The Remington Woods tract, with 347 acres in Bridgeport and another 75 acres in Stratford,  is owned by the DuPont Corporation. DuPont years ago bought up Remington Arms, which once had a manufacturing plant on the East Side, and tested its firearms at the Remington Woods site, located on the northeastern end of the city.

  The testing stopped long ago and the site has sat virtually untouched, except for pollution remediation carried out by DuPont, a chemical products company.

  Now, Florel and others in the group are sounding the alarm that Remington Woods may be destroyed, if a subsidiary firm of DuPont is allowed to go ahead with development plans.

  “Dow/DuPont with its spin off Corteva are planning to destroy the living forest community. They plan to build a road splitting it in two, a large industrial complex by the lake, cutting off wildlife access to the lake, and another building complex on the edge of the forest, which they call a research facility,” said Florel.

  There will be construction of infrastructure --- including roads, water piping, and sewer and electrical lines.  Florel estimates that thousands of trees --- many of them decades old --- will be removed in the process.

  “The forest is not an object, it is a living organism.  Destroying part will destroy the whole,” she says.

   

Remington Woods

  Recently, Florel and others in the group spoke at a City Council meeting, alerting officials to the environmental threat and asking for their help.

  They are asking the city to change the zoning of Remington Woods from industrial to one which preserves the entire woods. They are also asking that the city not issue any permits that would allow development to proceed.

  Dr. J.D.  Smith spoke of the many environmental and health benefits that the Remington Woods provides --- including holding carbon and controlling global warming; cooling air; mitigating drought; aiding in the physical and mental health of local residents; and giving off oxygen.

 He also noted that the forest helps to fight air pollution, which has been a significant problem in Bridgeport and Fairfield County.

 “Air pollution is a serious threat to our health and safety,” he said. “Bridgeport deserves clean air. Forest cleans the air.”

  Smith also commented, “Destroying nature has a terrible cost, but it never makes it to the ledger books.”

  Erik Kuranko talked about environmental racism in Bridgeport, and how in more affluent, whiter communities, nature is valued and people have access to it.

   The group also noted that Bridgeport’s 10-year Master Plan emphasizes the need to “Value Nature,” and that preserving Remington Woods will honor that goal.

   Florel says that a "win-win solution" is possible --- preserving Remington Woods in its entirety and using "the many vacant existing commercial buildings" in Bridgeport for commerce instead.