By John McNamara – nbpoliticus.com
FARMINGTON – Batterson Park, closed and unused for more than a decade, will be open to all visitors this summer as a place for picnicking, short hikes, birding, bald eagle watching, kayaking, fishing, splash padding or just communing with nature on the New Britain-Farmington line.
Officials from Farmington, Hartford and New Britain got a tour of the park on June 4 ahead of the grand opening that is expected in a matter of weeks. The opening comes after a state-funded $10 million revitalization and the selection of Riverfront Recapture to manage the park by the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP).
Mike Zaleski, Riverfront Recapture’s President and CEO, says the upcoming ribbon cutting will be “a celebration of re-opening a space that for many years has not been accessible and has not showcased Batterson Park Pond the way it should be.”
Zaleski said the new park plan is based on a modified master plan by the city of Hartford. There are “additional things we can do in the future,” pointing to expanding trails and a fishing pier. “We think it will be a very popular public space.”
Zaleski emphasized that the park will re-open for “passive recreation.” Its pavilions and open spaces will be ideal for picnics and family reunions in addition to jogging, walking and using the pond for canoeing and kayaking. Riverfront officials said the parks that the organization manages are open 365 days a year closing each day at sunset. One of the immediate benefits, they said, would be opening up the park to children from Camp Courant on Batterson Park Road, Camp Courant is the 132-year-old summer day camp for Hartford children.
Swimming, for generations a major activity for Hartford and New Britain children and families at Batterson, will be prohibited for the foreseeable future. “No swimming” signs are prominently displayed along the waterfront. A sandy beach has been replaced by shrubs and bushes to form a natural barrier.
A 2024 DEEP report submitted to the Legislature’s Environment Committee, concluded that allowing swimming is at best a long-term proposition. “Batterson Park Pond is not suitable for swimming. Batterson Park Pond is best suited for non-contact recreational uses, such as boating, fishing, kayaking and bird watching. Due to the park’s location in a developed area and other challenges, water quality improvement efforts will be expensive, take years to implement, and ultimately may not be sustainable.”
House Speaker Ritter began a new push for restoring Batterson Park in 2021 and a state bond provided the $10 million that has been used along with additional support from the City of Hartford over the last 18 months to bring the abandoned park back to life. A tri-town partnership involving Farmington, Hartford and New Britain never materialized, and Ritter’s idea to make Batterson a state park was eventually dropped.
Related story: Matt Ritter’s Batterson Park Redux – New Britain Progressive Newspaper
In 2023 Ritter began the final and successful push for Batterson saying: “It is completely inappropriate. It is completely unacceptable that just a few miles from the city of Hartford or New Britain, where some of our poorest residents live, that we took an open space – dedicated in the 1920s to give families a chance, without driving to a beach an hour and a half a way, to come with their families and sit outside, to swim, to play basketball – that we let it get to this. I will use the power of my office in the time that I have in politics to right that wrong.”
The 2024 DEEP feasibility study led to legislation designating Riverfront Recapture for park management and to include Batterson in the state passport to parks program. Passport funding derived from $8 fees on motor vehicle registrations will ensure the park will be staffed and maintained and managed by Riverfront Recapture.
Batterson, located 10 miles from Hartford and once part of the capital city’s watershed, has been looked at as a lucrative asset for Hartford’s cash-strapped city government from time to time. Of the more than 600 original acres parcels have been sold off for the highway (I-84) and private development through the years, but the 165-acre pond and remaining space is owned by Hartford.
Ward 4 Alderman John McNamara is the Common Council Majority Leader.
NB Politicus 