The last portion of the Norwalk River from the head of navigation near Wall Street in Central Norwalk to the Long Island Sound forms Norwalk Harbor. It is a federal navigation channel of the "recreational and small commercial harbor" variety.[1][2]
In and around the harbor there are 15 marinas, 13 private clubs with boating facilities, and 5 commercial port facilities. There are more than 1800 berthing spaces and more than 500 harbor mooring locations. About 800 boats may be launched from storage racks at marinas and clubs as well as via the city maintained launching ramp in Veterans Park. More than 2700 commercial vessel trips to and from the harbor occur each year.[3] The main harbor channel is small enough to restrict the size of vessels that could attempt to use it. In 2001 waterborne commerce in the harbor totaled 512,000 short tons (464,000t). Typical freight included fuel oil, sand, gravel, stone, and shellfish (particularly oysters and lobsters).[2]
Description
Sheffield Island as seen from Rowayton across the Sheffield harbor southwest entrance to Norwalk harborThe Stroffolino memorial bascule bridge carries Washington Street over the river at the beginning of the inner harbor.
From the sound the main approach to the harbor lies to the southwest of Rowayton and Sheffield Island. The wider and deeper southwest approach is also known as "Sheffield Harbor", whereas the narrower and shallower eastern approach is known as "Cockenoe Harbor.[4] There is a 4.7-mile (7.6km)-long channel extending from the outer harbor to the head of the harbor in Norwalk. The channel is 12 feet (3.7m) deep and 200 feet (61m) wide from the outer harbor to Gregory Point in East Norwalk, where it narrows to 150 feet (46m) wide up to the wharves at South Norwalk. The channel then widens to 250 feet (76m) along the wharves to the Washington Street (Stroffolino) Bridge. Upstream of the Washington street bridge the inner harbor lies along 1.5 miles (2.4km) of the river. The channel of the inner harbor is 10 feet (3.0m) deep and between 100–200 feet (30–61m) wide until it terminates at the head of the harbor at the Wall Street bridge in central Norwalk. There is an anchorage area 10 feet (3.0m) deep and 17 acres (6.9ha) in area on the east side of the channel in the vicinity of Fitch Point in East Norwalk. There is also a 0.6-mile (0.97km)-long, six-foot-deep channel, 125–150 feet (38–46m) wide, extending northeast from the 10-foot (3.0m) anchorage opposite Fitch Point to the head of the harbor at East Norwalk. Another six-foot-deep anchorage area lies adjacent to the head of the harbor at East Norwalk.[5]
List of inner harbor crossings
From the head of navigation at Wall Street traveling out to the outer harbor there are:
There are no bridges across the outer harbor or the approach channels.
History
Adriaen Block's map of New Netherland from his 1614 voyage depicts the southern shore of Connecticut
In 1614 Dutch navigator Adriaen Block explored the Connecticut coast aboard the Onrust and mapped the Norwalk Islands which lie at the outer boundary of the harbor. He referred to the group of islands as the "Archipelago".[7]
As an aid to navigation at the harbor channel entrance the Sheffield Island Light was operational by 1826 (on what was called "Smith Island" at the time). In 1872 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers started its first work on harbor improvements in Norwalk.[5] On January 21, 1897, the United States Congress agreed to spend $73,100.00 on aids to navigation in Norwalk Harbor including lights and fog signals.[8] As a result of the expenditure Greens Ledge Light was operational by 1902 and Pecks Ledge Light was operational by 1906. The Sheffield Island light was discontinued as a federally maintained aid to navigation when the Greens Ledge Light was activated.
The Ischoda Yacht Club was founded in 1886 along the western shore of Norwalk Harbor in South Norwalk and is among America's oldest Yacht Clubs.[9] The Norwalk Yacht Club was formed in August 1894 in Wilson's Cove.[10]
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dredged the harbor in 1950.[5]
In October 1955 a great flood washed down the Norwalk River and destroyed many of the buildings adjacent to the riverbanks. Today's Freese Park along Main Avenue was a built up commercial block before October 1955. The flood left a wake of destruction in the harbor that took a long time to recover from.
The Connecticut Turnpike was built over the river in 1956-1958. The salt marsh just south of the Yankee Doodle bridge on the river's west bank was turned into a garbage dump, but has since been closed, capped, and turned into "Oyster Shell Park" (not to be confused with the native Siwanoy shell middens across the river on the east bank near "Oyster bend").[3]
The Norwalk Harbor Commission was established in 1984 by the Norwalk City Council. The commission is responsible for maintaining a Harbor Management plan that includes maintaining the safe navigation in the harbor, policies for the harbor master, the promotion of the harbor, and the maintenance of the Visitors dock at Veterans Park.[11]
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers finished harbor re-dredging projects in 1980 and again in 2006. There will be a new dredging project for the inner and river portions of the harbor.[12]
In the spring of 2007 the Marine Unit of the Norwalk Police department launched a new 38-foot (12m) police boat the Riva. On July 10, 2007 the Norwalk Fire Department commissioned its first fireboat the Harry Bower named to honor a fire fighter who died in 2005. In the fall of 2007 the harbor was visited by the Seafair a 228-foot (69m) motor yacht. The visit of the Seafair was accompanied by private viewings of objects in the vessel's art galleries.[13]
A utility project in the fall of 2007 replaced an electric power transmission line that runs from Connecticut to Long Island. Seven fluid-filled cables originally laid in 1969 were replaced with three new solid dielectric cables.[14] The existing cables are joined at the oil-fired electric generating substation on Manresa Island in Norwalk Harbor. From there, they cross under Norwalk Harbor and Long Island Sound to connect at the Long Island Power Authority’s substation in the village of Northport, New York. The three new 11-mile (18km) long cables were buried at least one fathom (2 m) below the Sound’s bottom.[15]
The Skyline Princess, a 120-foot (37m) motor yacht out of New York, makes port of call stops at Veterans Park.[16]
The harbor is a "drowned river valley" flooded as the sea rose at the end of the last ice age. Bedrock under the harbor and in the Harborview and Calf Pasture Beach area is interlayered Ordovician trap falls gneisses and Harrison Gneiss with dark minerals hornblende, biotite and garnet. The bedrock has two folds in the harbor area. The earlier, more southerly one was formed at the same time as the Taconic Mountains. That fault runs from Bell Island through Manresa Island to Sprite Island. The second (created during the Acadian mountain-building event of 485–440 million years ago) runs along a line north from Noroton Point on Sheffield Island Harbor toward Exit 15 on Interstate 95.[17]
↑ Skehan, James W., Roadside Geology of Connecticut and Rhode Island, p 225-226, Missoula, Montana: Mountain Press Publishing Co., 2008, ISBN978-0-87842-547-1
San Francisco Bay is a shallow estuary in the US state of California. It is surrounded by a contiguous region known as the San Francisco Bay Area, and is dominated by the large cities of San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland.
Long Island Sound is a tidal estuary of the Atlantic Ocean, lying predominantly between the U.S. state of Connecticut to the north, and Long Island in New York to the south. From west to east, the sound stretches 110 mi (180 km) from the East River in New York City, along the North Shore of Long Island, to Block Island Sound. A mix of freshwater from tributaries and saltwater from the ocean, Long Island Sound is 21 mi (34 km) at its widest point and varies in depth from 65 to 230 feet.
Upper New York Bay, or Upper Bay, is the traditional heart of the Port of New York and New Jersey, and often called New York Harbor. It is enclosed by the New York City boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Staten Island and the Hudson County, New Jersey, municipalities of Jersey City and Bayonne.
Lower New York Bay is a section of New York Bay south of the Narrows, the relatively narrow strait between the shores of Staten Island and Brooklyn. The southern end of the bay opens directly to the Atlantic Ocean between two spits of land, Sandy Hook, New Jersey, and Rockaway, Queens, on Long Island. The southern portion between Staten Island and New Jersey, at the mouth of the Raritan River, is named Raritan Bay. The Hudson Canyon, the ancient riverbed of the Hudson River which existed during the last ice age when the ocean levels were lower, extends southeast from Lower New York Bay for hundreds of miles into the Atlantic Ocean. The nearby part of the Atlantic Ocean between New Jersey and Long Island is the New York Bight.
The Fox–Wisconsin Waterway is a waterway formed by the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers. First used by European settlers in 1673 during the expedition of Marquette & Joliet, it was one of the principal routes used by travelers between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River until the completion of the Illinois and Michigan Canal in 1848 and the arrival of railroads. The western terminus of the Fox–Wisconsin Waterway was at the Mississippi at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. It continued up the Wisconsin River about 116 miles (187 km) until reaching Portage, Wisconsin. There travelers would portage to the Upper Fox River, or eventually, use the Portage Canal. It continued about 160 miles (257 km) down the Fox River, following it through Lake Winnebago and continuing on the Lower Fox over 170 feet of falls to the eastern terminus of Green Bay.
Sheffield Island Light is a historic lighthouse located at the southern end of the Norwalk Islands in Norwalk, Connecticut. It marks the west side of the mouth of the Norwalk River on northern Long Island Sound.
The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk is an aquarium located in the South Norwalk section of Norwalk, Connecticut.
The Houston Ship Channel, in Houston, Texas, is part of the Port of Houston, one of the busiest seaports in the world. The channel is the conduit for ocean-going vessels between Houston-area terminals and the Gulf of Mexico, and it serves an increasing volume of inland barge traffic.
The Norwalk River is a river in southwestern Connecticut, approximately 21 miles (34 km) long. The word "Norwalk" comes from the Algonquian word "noyank" meaning "point of land".
The Port of New York and New Jersey is the port district of the New York-Newark metropolitan area, encompassing the region within approximately a 25-mile (40 km) radius of the Statue of Liberty National Monument. It includes the system of navigable waterways in the New York–New Jersey Harbor Estuary, which runs along 650 miles (1,050 km) of shoreline in the vicinity of New York City and northeastern New Jersey, as well as the region's airports and supporting rail and roadway distribution networks. Considered one of the largest natural harbors in the world, the port has become the second busiest port by tonnage in the United States as of 2019, and the busiest on the East Coast.
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The history of Norwalk, Connecticut ranges from pre-contact cultures and Native Americans to the 21st century.
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The Norwalk Islands are a chain of more than 25 islands amid partly submerged boulders, reefs and mudflats along a six-mile (10 km) stretch and mostly about a mile off the coast of Norwalk, Connecticut, and southwest Westport, Connecticut, in Long Island Sound.
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Duxbury Bay is a bay on the coast of Massachusetts in the United States. The west shore of the bay is the town of Duxbury, Massachusetts; and the bay is formed by a sandbar called The Gurnet extending southeasterly from Marshfield, Massachusetts into Cape Cod Bay. The town of Marshfield was named for the estuarine wetland at the north end of the bay. The bay opens southerly toward Plymouth, Massachusetts between Captains Hill to the west and Saquish Head to the east.
Fayerweather Island is a 71⁄2-acre land mass in Long Island Sound. Part of the city of Bridgeport, Connecticut, it is located south of the city's Seaside Park. The island contains a resurgent coastal forest composed primarily of white oak and Eastern red cedar growth. It is home to the Black Rock Harbor Light, built in 1823, at the mouth of Black Rock Harbor.
Hope is an oyster sloop that was completed in 1948. It is believed to be the last sail-powered oystering vessel built on the Long Island Sound. Hope is 56 feet (17 m) long, including the bowsprit, and 42 feet 2 inches (12.9 m) at the waterline. Its beam is 15 feet 2 inches (4.6 m), and it draws 4 feet 9 inches (1.4 m) with the centerboard up. Hope is gaff rigged, 'V'-bottomed and has an 850-pound (390 kg) centerboard. Hope's shallow draft facilitated shoal water work.
Manresa Island is a former island located in Norwalk, Connecticut, at the mouth of Norwalk Harbor in the Long Island Sound. The earliest name for the landform was Boutons Island, which dates to 1664. By the 19th century, the island had been purchased by John H. Keyser, who lived there and cultivated rare vegetation. He built a causeway in 1860, connecting the island to the mainland of South Norwalk. This gave rise to the name Keyser Island, which was sold to the Jesuits toward the end of the century.
Charles E. Wheeler Wildlife Management Area is a 625-acre (253 ha) brackish tidal marsh, nature preserve and hunting area owned by the state of Connecticut located in Devon (village), Milford, New Haven County, Connecticut.
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