Coffee With: Aimee Petras of the Farmington River Watershed Association
- jfitts0
- Mar 25
- 7 min read
By Carl Wiser Staff Writer
We take it for granted that we can swim, fish, tube and kayak in the Farmington River, but behind the scenes, the Farmington River Watershed Association is making sure the water stays clean and the river remains accessible. "We fight for the river to have a voice," says Aimee Petras, who started at the FRWA in 2005 and became the executive director in 2022. "It's all about protecting the river, not allowing it to get further developed, and making sure we're protecting what is coming into the river."
Before the Clean Water Act put a stop to it in 1972, factories often discharged waste directly into rivers. It was up to local communities to protect their rivers, which is why citizens in Simsbury formed the Farmington River Watershed Association in 1953. In the 1960s you probably wouldn't let your kids go in the river, but over time it became the clean and healthy resource it is today.
Keeping the River Flowing
In the 1980s, Americans were thirsty. Industry and households used lots of water and it looked like more would be needed. This put the Farmington River at risk when the MDC tried to divert it. "They already had Barkhamsted reservoir," Petras explains. "They were going to build a tunnel, so we started to fight those diversions."
That fight led to a "Wild And Scenic" designation in 1994 for the Upper Farmington, which runs through Canton, New Hartford, Heartland, Colebrook and Barkhamsted. Since then the water shortage has abated.
"We're actually using less water than we did many years ago," says Petras. "We don't have industries pulling in water. People are putting in more water-efficient features in their homes. You take an old tub washing machine and you put a water-efficient one in, you're cutting your water use almost by a third."
In 2019 the Lower Farmington, which is the 61.7 miles of river downstream of the Collinsville dams flowing into the Connecticut River in Windsor, also earned Wild And Scenic status.
"Endangered River" Designation
In 2024 the Farmington River was named one of the 10 Most Endangered Rivers in America by the nonprofit organization American Rivers. The reason: a hydropower dam at Rainbow Reservoir in Windsor causing toxic algae outbreaks. The dam is owned by Stanley Black & Decker and is about 100 years old.
"As the facility has gotten older, it's not circulating the water as quickly," Petras explains. "It's building it up so it can produce energy at a certain time of the day, as opposed to being more regularly run. By holding up that water, you're allowing it to warm, and with all the nutrients that are in there, it's allowing algae blooms. The more nutrients in the water, the more chance that these algae will be produced, and then the algae suck up all the oxygen and it makes it an anoxic condition and it starts to snowball. When you hear about dogs dying because they went swimming in the river, it's those kind of blooms."
The Farmington River Watershed Association pushed for the endangered designation to draw attention to the problem and push Stanley Black & Decker to act. "They've allowed their facility to degrade because they don't want to upgrade it, because that would trigger new regulations to them," says Petras. "They're grandfathered in at this point, but once they go to an upgrade status, that's when they have to make improvements on the facility, so they're trying to stay under the radar. That's why you need people like FWRA to bring awareness to the issue."
She adds: "Because they're a private company they don't share when they're doing their releases, what their flow data is, so we had to gather it instead so that we could make the case that there's something really wrong there."
Identifying Problems on the River
Petras and her team are scientific and smart - they know how cyanobacteria form and can make impressive hydrographs. They're always gathering data on the river to identify problems and find solutions, then educating the public. A major issue they've identified is storm water runoff.
"That's water that's rushing over hardened surfaces all over the watershed," Petras says. "It goes into a storm drain or it brushes over lawns and roadways and pulls in all of those contaminants and puts it into the river. If you look at a storm drain, eventually that storm system goes straight into the river through wetlands, through conveyance swales, and that ends up straight in the river and it changes the water quality and quantity.
"There's a storm water system and there is the municipal waste system. If you flush your toilet, that goes into a designated pipe that goes to the sewage treatment plant. But water in the road does not go into those systems. It goes into the river systems and will discharge directly into the rivers."
The solution: get rainwater to absorb where it lands.
"We want the system to behave more like a forested landscape. When water falls in a forested landscape it gets absorbed into groundwater and then slowly gets through the ground system into the rivers. We also advocate for better buffers, which are areas next to riparian corridors. We want to have forested or vegetative corridors next to our rivers and streams because that allows the water to absorb and it filters the water before it gets into the river."
Peace Corps
Petras grew up in Norwalk, where she spent lots of time outdoors hiking and exploring the beaches along Long Island Sound. She earned a geology degree from SUNY Stony Brook and went to work for an environmental consulting company specializing in groundwater. That meant "cleaning up after gas companies, making sure that the contamination underneath the surface was removed when they removed tanks."
"I did that for a number of years and decided it wasn't my cup of tea, so I quit and went into the Peace Corps," she says.
Petras was sent to Morocco in February 2002, where as a liaison between the local community and the regional agriculture office, she helped distribute thousands of olive trees. She was evacuated a year later when the Iraq War started.
"Even though Morocco is a very touristic country, we were all in very small villages where we stuck out like a sore thumb. In order to guarantee our individual safety in those first days when they thought Saddam would fall in seven days or something, we were all held in a big hotel in our regions waiting for it to be over, except it didn't end, and two weeks later we were evacuated from Morocco to D.C."
Aimee went back to Morocco when the program reopened six months later and did another year of service. When she returned to Connecticut, she decided the world of consulting "didn't suit my worldview," and she landed at the FRWA.
Petras lives in West Hartford with her husband Youssef and daughter Tessa, 13. She met Youssef in the Peace Corps - he's a Moroccan National who speaks five languages. We met at The Coffee Spot in Simsbury to get to know her better.
What do you like to do when you're not working?
I love hiking, getting out in nature. I love looking for mushrooms.
I'm crafty. I've done ceramics, stained glass. I love to get my hands dirty.
What is something you'd like to learn?
I'd like to play a musical instrument. My husband is very musical. He's always playing guitar, but I'm not generally musical.
What local businesses do you like?
I love to go to the thrift shop here in Simsbury because I like to find clothes that are not just mass-produced. I like Brewery Legitimus for beer, and I love going to Collinsville and experiencing all the little shops. My hairdresser is there - I go to Milkweeds salon.
In this area of Simsbury our staff is always trying out different places. There's Popover, Small State... we love Dom's Coffee. Every year I try to buy everyone on staff ice cream at least once from Tulmeadow Farms.
And we support the local outfitters. Main Stream Canoe is under new ownership, and Collinsville Canoe & Kayak has been a long-time supporter of FRWA. We love the people that work there.
What's one of your non-work related talents?
I make my own soap, which is really fun. It's chemistry. You take oils and lye and mix them together in precise measurements and it makes soap. All the soap in our house is made by me.
I also like to pickle and can hot peppers and cucumbers.
What wisdom would you give to your younger self?
Stay with your convictions. When I was in school I was a resident advisor and I lived in the freshman dorms for four years, so my advice to students was to follow what your interests are. I tried to follow my heart and improve the environment that I live in. It's been very fulfilling staying in that path.
Learn more about the Farmington River Watershed Association, including how to become a member, at frwa.org.
Fun Fact:
The Farmington River hosts almost all 13 of the freshwater mussel species in the region, a sign of a healthy river. "Freshwater mussels are linked to the ability of a river to pass fish and have a robust migratory fish population," Petras says. "Freshwater mussels don't live in habitats that are degraded."
Aimee's Favorite Places in the Valley to See the River
Near the intersection of 44 and 10, there's a small dirt road behind Raymour & Flanigan that will take you there. "They have a really fantastic little trail that goes along the Farmington River that has some really old fir trees and hemlock trees, a really neat little forested landscape."
"I really like the little trails that go along the river."
Part of the Simsbury Land Trust, this is a ridge line trail like Talcott Mountain. "That's a great spot - it gets you all the way up the ridge line so you can see the valley."
