FRWA received a major gift from the Estate of Lily Frey of  beautiful riverside land in New Hartford.

The Frey Property was gifted to the FRWA to steward and to use for educational purposes. FRWA became the owner of the property in 2019. Since then, we have been working on activity managing the property guided by our partners and our contract with USDA / Natural Resources Conservation Services. The property contains meadow habitat, a stream, and a stormwater retention pond. Meadows have become increasingly rare in Connecticut and so we are excited to be able to provide an important habitat for diverse wildlife—birds, bears, deer, foxes, otters, pollinators, and more have been observed on this property. The FRWA board of directors has established a Land Steward Committee to address the conservation goals of this property.

As a watershed association, FRWA strives to be a good steward of the watershed and this project. This location will allow us to educate by example to the local residents and broader Farmington River Watershed groups and communities. We hope to use our Frey Property as an incubator of educational methods related to reforestation, native meadow restoration, wetland restoration, stormwater retrofits and invasive species management. Since 2019, when FRWA received the property, FRWA has been planning and working with partners to follow best management practices and develop a conservation plan.

FRWA has been busy on the Frey Property this year! We are making progress removing invasive plants and have been prepping the meadow for a wildlife habitat planting this fall, guided by our contract with the USDA / Natural Resources Conservation Service. Our restoration efforts include removing invasive black locust trees and planning a riparian buffer planting of 500 native trees next spring with Trout Unlimited, funded by the National Park's Trust Challenge Cost Share Program. Our ongoing research in the stream and pond are providing interesting data that we will be able to use to inform our land management practices to improve water quality. Additionally, we continue to monitor the wildlife using the property via our trail cameras - we’ve even spotted the ever elusive river otter!

Previous property owners grazed livestock near the stream leaving a streambank devoid of vegetation. This has caused the stream to have warmer water temperatures and increased stormwater runoff. Increased temperatures from the lack of vegetation along the stream and from road runoff have been observed by FRWA’s continuous temperature logger placed at the confluence of this stream- a direct discharge into the Farmington River. The retention pond was established to collect stormwater runoff from the housing development and roads upstream in the 1970’s. This retention pond is located adjacent to the river and directly discharges to the Farmington River adding polluted stormwater runoff, including excess nutrients of nitrogen and phosphorous, chloride, oils, contaminants, and trash.  We hope to retrofit this pond and come up with a plan that will drastically improve the water quality and quantity at this location.  

Wildlife cameras: FRWA has deployed wildlife cameras on the property and we have seen foxes, bobcats, great blue herons, bald eagles, deer, turkey, coyote, racoons, and mallards use the property.

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