Monday, June 17, 2019

RecPath Fences Repaired

We walked the route of the CT Trails Day Hike the week before and everything was fine.  On Trails Day, 6/1/19 when we came to the bridge at Silent Waters we found this:

Some jerks went through, snapped fence post and knocked down fences on top of the dam along the RecPath.  The fences protected people from falling off the face of the historic dams along Silent Waters, so this wasn't just your stupid run-of-the-mill vandalism, this was public safety vandalism. 

The Trails Day hike went fine and no one was injured or harmed, but this had to get fixed.

Unfortunately, this occurred at the end of the City's fiscal year, and I won't get into the ugly details,  but it's challenging to get things purchased at this time of the year in Shelton.  The Trails Committee is also pretty strapped with mowing and brushcutting chores right now because everything is growing wildly on 28 miles of trails across town.

So the Mayor authorized some overtime for D&D Landscaping; a local contractor who has helped us out in the past.  Bill Dyer, Trails Committee Chairman, went over to Home Depot, and personally bought 40 fence rails (with his 10% Veteran's discount), and Terry Gallagher picked up 8 locust fence posts at Orange Fence Co. on Sat. and carried them up to the broken sections.

Long story short, Dan & Dave did a great job with Bill in pulling out the broken posts, cutting brush, resetting rails, and making the fence solid, safe and tight so the RecPath was safe for you, the public,  again.

New posts were installed, rails replaced, fence rails moved around and existing posts were tightened up.


A lot of lower fence rails were replaced, and the fences were straightened in a number of places. 

There's more to do, but the immediate crisis was fixed, and fixed well by D&D Landscaping and Trails volunteers.  This should make things safer for RecPath users. 

There's a lot of beautiful corners of Shelton along these trails.  If you're interested in seeing other portions of the Shelton Lakes Greenway join us Saturday, 6/22/19 at 8:30 on Constitution Blvd North for clearing along the Paugussett Trail.  See the trails work parties page for more info.


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