When I first learned of the Internet site - killingworthtoday.com- last week I searched for all reports and references to the Lover's Lane situation. I was amazed that none of the old timers that are still in Killingworth had reported that there was a bridge at what is now the problem site. In 1950 there were only about 600 residents in Killingworth. The bridge had a heavy wooden deck, and the cut was approximately Fifteen feet long by the width of the road and about Eight Feet Deep. It was deep on both sides of the cut and the abutments that the heavy wood carrying beams rested on were of quarried brownstone or other rock and they were embedded all the way down to bedrock or gravel (NOT peat bog)). It had to be because common sense dictates that the bridge would not last a year if the abutments were placed on peat moss.
In 1935 I was five years old when my father first took me fishing there coming all the way from our home in West Haven. We also tried our luck at a few other favorite places in Killingworth like Krupa Pond, the CCC Camp Roosevelt (More lately Chatfield Hollow). My dad learned about fishing spots from an old Killingworth native that he knew named Charlie Fowler. The Lover's Lane Bridge was an on going Eco system with trout, perch, pickerel, and some kind of small minnows in the shallows way up on either side along the road. Every year we would return on the first say of fishing season and land a couple of trout from the deeper water at the bridge. Once I recall a game warden appeared and informed us that the stream was not stocked by the state and that the fish were native. It had to be ecologically stable or it would not have propagated trout like it did. We did not even know the name of the road and our landmark was the load limit sign on both approaches to the road entrance approximately where the road-closed signs are now.
In 1950, or thereabouts, the town took down the bridge, filled the cut up more than half way and had placed two culvert pipes down, and then covered them over. Then they paved the top over thus eliminating the bridge. When we arrived there the following fishing season on opening day we discovered the disaster that had been created. We tried our luck but it soon became apparent that they had ruined it. I tried fishing there again the following year but it became evident that it was a dead and destroyed fishing site. I recall trucks dumping road debris and oily hot patch in the sides right in the water. Apparently there was no wetlands authority back then because they would have never have gotten away with that if there was. Again in 1969 when I re located to Killingworth I tried fishing it again but it was still conclusive that it was still a dead site.
Marty Klein is correct in stating that oil does appear from time to time but it has to be coming from the old road fill and other debris that was dumped way back then and not from traffic. When the bridge was there prior to 1950 I do not ever recall it being flooded over the road like now. I remember that when we fished there in early spring the water was high but never flooded over. The approaches to the wooded deck were slightly ramped so that the bridge deck was above road level.
I never could figure the reason for them demolishing the bridge, my best guess at the time, was that they had to do a little maintenance on it. Then apparently someone got the idea that a culvert could replace it and with out doing proper research on the viability of the method and consequences. Before the removal of the bridge the water was always clear and you could see all the way to the gravel bottom at the cut where the flow kept it clear in this area. Who do you blame for this disaster and was the State of Connecticut also involved? I don't know the real answer to that but my guess is that they thought that they were doing right and saving money by eliminating the bridge but the end result backfired and an adversity created.
It is clear to me that the real remedy for the situation is to remove
and clear all the tar and other oily junk that was dumped in there and
bring back the area to its original condition. Then deepen the pond area
so that fish and other essential organisms could proliferate during the
summer when there is little or no flow, and the final replacement of
the original bridge with an engineered one,
Sincerely,
Perry Funk