NEW DATE AND LOCATION:
The Community Update from CT DEEP on Six Lakes testing and  remediation will be held on Tuesday, May 21 at 6 p.m. at Thornton Wilder Auditorium, Miller Library, 2901 Dixwell Avenue in Hamden. This is a change from the previously advertised date, so please check your calendars!

Landscape architect dreams big

April 16 was a perfect day to show an out-of-town visitor the beauty and potential of Six Lakes, and to hear her well-informed opinions about how to achieve that potential. That visitor was Laura Starr, a landscape architect and a founding principal of Starr Whitehouse, with more than 25 years’ experience working in the New York City area. Her expertise includes bringing groups and individuals with different perspectives and goals together to develop projects guided by the values of sustainability, collaboration, and design excellence.

Starr also happens to be a good friend of a member of the Six Lakes steering committee, so she took the train to New Haven on said beautiful spring day to walk around the perimeter of the property with a handful of steering committee members – over two miles that include the Whitney Center retirement community, a chunk of the Farmington Canal Rail Trail, busy Putnam Avenue, and Leeder Hill Road, home to ACES Whitney Academy.

We began the walk behind Whitney Center, where the retirement community abuts a fence enclosing the Six Lakes property. Residents enjoy a beautiful path through the woods where they can rest on a bench and get great views of the water, the surrounding trees, and wildlife passing through.

At several points along the way, it was possible to see through the fencing some of the birds that frequent the hoped-for park, the various bodies of water, and the wooded areas that make Six Lakes such a desirable piece of real estate for the whole town but especially for those living nearby in Newhall, which lacks any significant open space otherwise.

Starr had lots of ideas for how to develop a broader and deeper constituency for Six Lakes, as well as ideas specific to the property, such as safe access points and connections with the wider surroundings, especially in terms of symbiotic economic development anchors, such as food trucks or farmers’ markets. Starr will be bringing her expertise to mapping out possibilities based on community input. Stay tuned for more information on community visioning sessions to come this summer!

Mayor Garrett endorses state park idea

Six Lakes should become a state park. At least, that's what Senator Martin Looney, President Pro Tempore of the state Senate, has publicly stated on more than one occasion. Hamden Mayor Lauren Garrett offered her blessing to that vision in an April 3rd letter to Governor Ned Lamont. "I am pleased to submit this letter in support of the remediation of Six Lakes, a parcel of land in Hamden, and the conversion of this land to a State Park," Garrett wrote in her official letter, which was copied to numerous state and local officials, including Senator Looney. 

The mayor's backing doesn't make the idea reality, but it does move us one step closer to a possible answer to the lingering question of who might be willing to take on this beautiful – but, for now, still contaminated – 102-acre property. Mayor Garrett's letter set in motion the opportunity to openly discuss such a possibility at the state level.

The Six Lakes Park Coalition will continue to press for – and, when necessary, broker – those conversations, in tandem with tracking ongoing testing and eventual remediation of industrial contaminants left behind by property owner Olin Corporation.

For more information on the most recent testing news, please join the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) at its second annual community update, May 21 at 6 p.m. at Thornton Wilder Auditorium, Miller Memorial Library, 2901 Dixwell Avenue in Hamden.

Sign the Six Lakes petition to let state leaders know you support the restoration and conservation of Six Lakes, too!