Date: 7/11/25 12:38 pm From: ftholloway--- via CTBirds <ctbirds...> Subject: [CT Birds] Re: followup on phrags at Hammonasset
Thanks, Micky, this is good information. While I am very supportive of major efforts against phrag and other invasives, it is clear that these would be large budget items with possibly multi-year completion times. I think efforts in those directions ought to be kept on a different track from the palliative maintenance that can at least allow us to see, for example, dowitchers in the Boulder Pond. For now, I intend to concentrate on the former. If anyone else has suggestions, please let me (and us) know.
Tom and Fran Holloway, Madison
On Friday, July 11, 2025 at 02:34:36 PM EDT, MICKY KOMARA via CTBirds <ctbirds...> wrote:
I've heard from park maintenance. They tell me some openings will be cut into the phrags for viewing. I also learned that the agency that use to regularly provide this phrag cutting service to parks, the Wetlands Habitat and Mosquito Management (WHAMM) Program, is operating with less funds and far fewer people. The staff once hovered around 14-15, and is now down to 2. So, even though there is equipment to do the job, there is not enough manpower to do it. And contracting the work out is even more expensive. It was suggested, that if you really want to make headway into this issue, that contacting elected local officials might be advisable, and voicing your opinion about the running amok of phrags, and ask them to restaff WHAMM specifically for this effort. This lack of funds and staff, I'm being told, is also the reason why the streams at Hammo have become clogged and overgrown (to the dismay to egrets and herons), why water openings are no longer cut into the marshes for migratory
shorebirds, and why trash is accumulating in the marshes. In addition, federal monies, once available to the state to help care for the environment, are also, due to the recent changes in Washington, are drying up. Again, if I could only wave a wand....
Micky Komara
860.669.603
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