News

No Idling: NCHS Friends of the Earth Club Works for Cleaner Air and a Better New Canaan

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Idling cars are a major pet peeve for New Canaan High School sophomore Will Santora. The 15-year-old is aware that it’s illegal in Connecticut to idle a motor vehicle for more than three minutes, yet he estimates that up to 80 percent of the cars that back up at the NCHS lot when school lets out are idling. “You waste gas, you waste money, you are polluting—and all for no reason,” Santora said from Room 115 at the high school on a recent afternoon, surrounded by a half-dozen likeminded sophomores and juniors. “You don’t need to leave your car running at all. And people sometimes just forget to turn off their car or they don’t realize it’s going, so that is a big issue because it does pollute a lot and if you idle for more than 10 seconds, you are already starting to waste gas.”

In the next month or so, Santora and this group of high school teens—together they are the Friends of the Earth Club, an extracurricular group—will purchase and install a “no idling” sign on school grounds.

Around Town

The Nature of New Canaan: Sappin’ It up at the Nature Center

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One of the best parts of winter is the maple tree tapping program at the New Canaan Nature Center. My family and I await with anticipation this quintessential New England activity each February. Sure, we sled down our luge track of a driveway each year, and Colin has dubbed the six-foot snow pile at the bottom of our driveway “Camp Raccoon” —perfect for ducking behind when a snowball whizzes by one’s head. However, nothing beats the Norman Rockwell feeling of leading your kids through the snow to outfit a maple tree with a spile (the spout that gets tapped into the tree) and a bucket just like pioneers must have. This year, donning our new snow shoes, my son Aidan and I trekked through the snow with several other families to find the right tree.

Around Town

Geoff McCann at Kiwanis: New Canaan Nature Center Offers Year-Round Programs

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By Susan Serven

Geoff McCann, Education Program Director of the New Canaan Nature Center, recently spoke to New Canaan’s Kiwanis Club about the Nature Center’s year-round programs.

“We offer programs throughout the year for both children, teens and adults, including our February and March Maple Syrup ‘boil-downs’ which are terrific family-friendly ways to learn how maple syrup is made,” Mr. McCann said. “And, in addition to our programs, our 40-acre site features two miles of trails, unusual habitat diversity, including wet and dry meadows, two ponds, wet and dry woodlands, dense thickets, an old orchard, and a cattail marsh,” he said. Mr. McCann presented information on the Nature Center’s 20-year involvement with LINKS, the state-wide inter-district educational program designed to bring urban and suburban students together to share learning opportunities. He also discussed the Nature’s Center interest in continuing the Haley Project which gives Norwalk 5th graders an intensive look and study of our local Five Mile River watershed, as well as the continuation of the Nature Center’s Summer Youth Corps for local high school students to get engaged in environmental stewardship projects. For more information on the New Canaan Nature Center please visit the organization’s website.

Around Town

DPW Seeks $125,000 for New Sidewalk Connecting Elm Street to Irwin Park

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Public works officials are seeking $125,000 next fiscal year to create a widely anticipated sidewalk connecting the top of Elm Street to Irwin Park. The sidewalk would run along the west side of Weed Street and, according to preliminary engineering plans (see PDF below), could involve removing one row of maple trees and a tree stump, and relocating a set of mailboxes at Woods End Road. The sidewalk wouldn’t run up against the roadway but would have a “grass shelf” between it and Weed Street, Department of Public Works Assistant Director Tiger Mann said Tuesday during a budget request presentation to the Board of Finance. “All we will need basically are handicapped accessible ramps on either end and across Woods End Road and some of the driveways and what have you,” Mann said at the finance board meeting, held in the Sturgess Room at the New Canaan Nature Center. “But we will not be adjacent to the roadway, so we will have grass shelf and that gets a lot easier and a lot less expensive to construct.”

The $125,000 for the new sidewalk is part of an overall $785,000 request for engineering in fiscal year 2016 (see page 29 here), along with $5 million in bonding for the town’s regular street paving program ($2.5 million per year over two years).

Around Town

Boy Scout Project Improves Access to Land Trust Parcel

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By Mark Peiser

A Boy Scout Eagle Project, completed in October, now provides improved access to the New Canaan Land Trust’s Colhoun Parcel. The project includes a safer entrance gate and a designated parking area, making it easier for members of the community to access the parcel. Gifted in 1974 by Dick and Didi Colhoun, the parcel is located on Davenport Ridge Road, just west of Skyview Lane, and is the New Canaan Land Trust’s third largest with 21 acres of undisturbed woodlands and meadows. Chris Schipper, president of the Land Trust, said, “The Colhoun Parcel is a key part of the Land Trust’s ‘Gateways of New Canaan’ Stewardship Program. At the crossroads of New Canaan and Stamford, Colhoun is a lead parcel for our Gateways program.