A local construction company has been working with the state to complete a new fish ladder in Clinton adjacent to the Big Y parking lot. When completed, the ladder will help fish get to their spawning grounds, attracting nature enthusiasts while also providing environmental and educational benefits.
Construction on the ladder is currently underway in the Big Y parking area and is anticipated to be completed sometime in early 2026.
James Lally, owner and president of the Clinton-based Schumack Engineered Construction, told the Harbor News that the purpose of the ladder dates back over 200 years. Lally said that in the early 1800s the upper mill pond dam was completed along the Indian River to provide power for a local mill. The dam is located behind Glennwood Road and behind the parking lot off Route 81 where the Big Y now sits.
While the dam was originally built for the mill, it had unfortunate and unintended environmental impacts. Fish, especially alewife and blueback herring, instinctually travel up the river each year from Long Island Sound to spawn in the lakes and ponds they were born in. However, once the dam was created, the fish were blocked from their spawning habitats.
That’s where the fish ladder comes in.
A fish ladder, sometimes called a fishway, is exactly what it sounds like: a ladder used to lift fish over obstacles in rivers such as dams. Scott Hines, a superintendent at Schumack, explained the ladders have openings at the bottom that create turbulence to attract the fish. The opening leads to a concrete corridor that has more machines to create turbulence so fish are able to swim up the corridor as they would a river with rapids. At the top there is another opening that the fish swim out of and into the upper part of the river.
Hines said the fish ladder will lift the fish six feet up over the dam within a span of 30 feet.
Lally and Hines said the company has constructed several other similar ladders around the state in towns like Wallingford, Essex, and Old Saybrook.
“They’re all very similar to the one in Clinton,” Lally said.
The company was awarded the contract to build the ladder back in May, according to Lally. The construction of the ladder is funded in part by a $500,000 grant from the state the town was awarded in in 2022 and in part by donations, according to Clinton Finance Director Robert Tait. Lally said a program from the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection encourages the construction of fish ladders around the state.
Lally said that a division of DEEP has been able to monitor the number of fish using the completed ladders around the state and the results have been encouraging, especially considering the important role the migratory fish play in the food chain. The fish are an important food for birds, other fish, and mammals that live along the pond.
“It’s really important these fish keep breeding and go back into the Long Island Sound,” Lally noted.
While the alewife and herring have been blocked from the Mill Pond for over 200 years, that may not be the case much longer. Hines said that DEEP has been introducing alewife and seeding the Indian River for about three years in preparation for the construction of the fish ladder.
“There’s a good chance that a lot of them have been already imprinted to return to this river,” Hines said.
The goal, according to Hines, is to have construction wrapped up by March when the alewife begin their migration between the river and the sound.
“This dam is the last obstacle between the river and the sound. Some other obstacles down river have been removed over the years. I think we’ll start to see the fish in the river again pretty soon,” Hines said.
It isn’t only the fish who like ladders. Lally said the public’s interest is often piqued by seeing the dams and fish ladders, especially during the times of year that fish are migrating. Hines noted that while many ladders are constructed on private property or deep in the woods where people may not regularly see them, Clinton’s will be near the heavily trafficked Big Y parking lot.
In light of that fact, Lally said that when Clinton’s fish ladder is complete there will be a ramp from the Big Y parking lot to a viewing platform overlooking the dam and ladder as well as signage explaining how the ladder works.
“These are very successful, and the public likes seeing them because you can see how the fish are surviving,” Lally said.