New Haven Electric Light Company was founded in 1881 and was originally located in downtown New Haven on Temple Street, between Crown and George Streets. As the demand for electricity rapidly increased, the company’s decision to expand and relocate in 1890 was driven by complaints of residents of the area. According to one history of New Haven’s development,
“People living in the residential neighborhoods around the George Street plant complained (some threatened lawsuits) about the constant vibration of the engines and the steady fall of “rain” from steam condensation.”8
Also taken into consideration was increased demand for water and coal. The site they chose on Grand Avenue gave them far easier access to both. No longer did they need to transport coal from the harbor by horse drawn wagon with direct access to the water and adjacent to rail lines. Eventually their coal fired plant was replaced by an oil burning facility on the southern portion of Ball Island, an 8.9-acre man-made island almost entirely contained by a steel bulkhead, which sits in the middle of the Mill River and is bisected by Grand Avenue.
English Station, the wider Ball Island, and the banks of the Mill at its southern terminus highlight the impact of industry on the health of the local community and economy as well as focus our efforts to imagine a better future for the neighborhood. The impacts of burning coal on a large scale in a densely populated neighborhood on human health and the associated buildup of heavy metals in the surrounding soils, cannot be understated. The switch to heavy oil brought additional challenges. The site has also been left heavily contaminated with PCBs from over 100 years of operation. Few of the pollutants stay put in the soil, leaching into groundwater and running off into the Mill River, New Haven Harbor, and eventually Long Island Sound.
The current effort to clean up Ball Island and plan its future will conclude the unit. This final case study will be be framed as an inquiry to understand the challenges posed by the site, identifying viable options, communicating with stakeholders, and proposing a partial or complete solution. Ideally, this discussion will consider aspects of the entire watershed ecology, the history of the river outlined above, and practices of restoration ecology as applied to this specific site as well as the needs of the community.
