Phragmites in the Lower Connecticut River

This photograph, taken on the banks of the Chester Creek looking downstream toward the numerous Chester marinas and boatyards located beyond the tree line, shows a particularly dense and concentrated stand of the invasive plant Phragmites. Chester Creek can be seen to the center right of the photo. Through the years the creek, which historically supported ship building as far upstream as Chester Village, has silted in shallowing the water depths to the point of making the creek unpassible to anything but the smallest of boats. This silting is especially pronounced upstream of the new Route 154 bridge beacuse of the damming effect of the roadbed, which is located out of the photo to the right.

Phragmites is a plant that doesn't thrive especially well in salty or brackish waters, preferring fresh water for survival. Phragmites tends to grow best along the edges of marshes near uplands like that seen in this photograph where slight rises in elevation allow some tidal inundation, but not to the point that salt or brackish water would end up killing off the plant.

When the Connecticut DEP's Tidal Marsh Restoration team heads out to eradicate the monocultural Phragmites, they take low ground pressure tractors that simply scrape the area where the Phragmites is growing down to an elevation where brackish or salt waters will inundate the area at every high tide. This influx of brackish and salt waters will eventually kill off the hearty, salt-intolerant Phragmites. These restoration efforts have occurred in numerous locations throughout the lower Connecticut River including on Lynde Point, Borough of Fenwick at the mouth of the river in Old Saybrook (photo right).