History of Manresa Island

From the NORWALK POWER ECONOMIC IMPACT ANALYSIS CITY OF NORWALK & MANRESA ASSOCIATION

FINDINGS & RECOMMENDATIONS REPORT:

“Manresa Island was known as Boutons Island as early as 1664 and then later as Keyser Island until World War II. In the early 1900’s Father Terence Shealy opened a Jesuit retreat center on the island, known as “Mount Manresa”. The name came from Manresa, a town in Spain where St. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, developed a method of spiritual retreats. In 1911, Shealy moved the retreat to Staten Island, but the Manresa name remained.

In 1953, the Norwalk Zoning Commission approved Connecticut Light and Power’s (CL&P) plan to develop the Manresa property into a coal-fired power plant. In 1955, the Marvin Beach Association in East Norwalk tried unsuccessfully to stop the power plant project, which came to fruition and was built in the late 1950’s. CL&P commissioned the plant in 1960 and it burned coal between 1960 - 1972, when it was converted from coal to oil power.

A major fuel oil spill in 1969 caused significant damage to Village Creek beach and the tidal flats between Hoyt’s Island and Wilson Point. In that same year, a transmission line was installed under Long Island Sound that connected Manresa Island to Long Island. In 1980 the facility filed as a TSD (Treatment, Storage, and Disposal of Hazardous Waste) Facility in response to the 1976 Federal Resource Conservation & Recovery Act (RCRA) which governs the disposal of solid and hazardous waste. That triggered the Corrective Action Process, a requirement under RCRA that facilities investigate and clean up hazardous releases into soil, ground water, surface water and air.

In 1990 the Norwalk Common Council adopted the Harbor Management Plan. This document called out the wetlands around Manresa Island as “areas of concern”. This designation required regular review of oil spill control procedures at the Norwalk Power Plant. In 1997 Manresa was named one of Connecticut’s “Filthy Five” by the CT Coalition for Clean Air.

In 1999 NRG Energy purchased the plant from CL&P and operated the plant as an oil-fired power plant until 2013. In 2012 the Manresa property was almost completely underwater during Hurricane Sandy. As a result of this, the Plant was closed in June 2013.”

Below is an advertisement Placed in The Norwalk Hour Monday October 28, 1937. Norwalk residents were petitioning The City of Norwalk for Manresa to become a city park even then. LOOK below at “The Alternative” listed in the advertisement.

Then <insert the Darth Vader theme song here>, this happened: read THE NEW YORK TIMES article dated January 20, 1953 below: