Projects at the Mianus River Park

The Friends serve as stewards of the park. As such, we engage in routine trail maintenance and general park upkeep. We also partner with different groups to restore and improve the park. Volunteers from local Boy Scout troops, Rye Country Day, Aquarion, Trout Unlimited, and Fairfield County New England Mountain Biking Association (FCNEMBA) are just some of the groups we have teamed with to maintain the park.

Some of our past projects include:

• Urban Oasis

• Riverbank Restoration

• Deer exclusion area (planned and funded by the City of Stamford)

• Red Barn Plantings by Keep Stamford Beautiful

• Stairs below the Red Barn, by Student Conservation Association (SCA)

• Nature Zone established on East River Trail

• Bench installations

The Urban Oasis and Riverbank Restoration are the most notable as they are multiyear projects that involve many different organizations.

Urban Oasis

In 2015, Friends and Audubon Greenwich built an Urban Oasis for migrating birds. The Urban Oasis project, supported by the City of Stamford and by Treetops Permaculture of Stamford, created a high quality natural habitat with food and shelter for the birds. The Oasis is located between River Road Trail and the Mianus River.

Friends volunteers joined Aquarion Water Company employees to erect a fence, plant over 150 native species, and install an irrigation system.

Other project phases included significant additional plantings and installation of educational signs describing the Urban Oasis.

Greenwich Audubon funded the project with Aquarion providing a generous donation.

Riverbank Restoration

This is ongoing project resulted from the National Park Services 2004 erosion assessment. The Mianus Chapter of Trout Unlimited serves as the funding and implementation lead with The City of Stamford, Friends and other organizations providing support. Components include:

• Building up and reinforcing the riverbank with large stones

• Installing two stone vanes into the stream channel to prevent flooding and increase river depth

• Rerouting trails and adding fencing along river banks to allow for vegetation regrowth

• Planting vegetation along riverbank to prevent soil erosion

• Creating three hardened access points at the river’s edge to reduce soil entering its ecosystem

• Anchoring recycled Christmas trees along the riverbank to capture debris and restore bank