Success Lake is a reservoir in

Bridgeport, Connecticut Bridgeport is the List of municipalities in Connecticut, most populous city and a major port in the U.S. state of Connecticut. With a population of 148,654 in 2020, it is also the List of cities by population in New England, fifth-most populous ...

. The elevation of the reservoir is 46 feet. It is located in the 435 acre Lake Success Business Park, which was used to produce ammunition and explosives by the Remington Arms Company from 1905 through 1989 as it was then called "Remington Woods".

Geography

The reservoir is made up of north and south components. The south is about in size and deep, while the north is made up of two segments covering approximately , ranging from deep. The bottom of the lake is known to not be uniform. The outflow of the dam is the Yellow Mill Channel (also known as Yellow Mill Creek), which empties into

Bridgeport Harbor Bridgeport Harbor is an inlet on the north side of Long Island Sound in Bridgeport, Connecticut. It was carved by the retreat of the glaciers during the last ice age approximately 13,000 years ago. Bridgeport Harbor is a federal shipping port and ...

History

The lake dates from 1875, when the original dam was constructed. Success Lake was surveyed by the United States Geological Survey USGS in September 1979, and again by the United States Army Corps of Engineers in 1981. The Corps report notes that the reservoir's purpose was for fire suppression. The

DuPont DuPont de Nemours, Inc., commonly shortened to DuPont, is an American multinational chemical company first formed in 1802 by French-American chemist and industrialist Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours. The company played a major role in ...

company spent $50 million dollars and nearly twenty years in a remedial cleanup effort of the site's

Stratford, Connecticut Stratford is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. It is situated on Long Island Sound at the mouth of the Housatonic River. Stratford is in the Bridgeport–Stamford–Norwalk Metropolitan Statistical Area. It was settled ...

portion. The lake itself and its surrounding area had not been cleaned as of 2013. The lake was re-evaluated in spring 2014. The report notes that munitions were disposed of in several areas of the northern section of the lake. As of 2015, development plans have been slow to materialize for the site, and an advocacy group aligned with the

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is attempting to have the lake and the land surrounding it preserved as open space.

Wildlife

The pond is renowned for containing world class alligator gar. This is likely because the lake is contaminated with both

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and lead in high concentrations as well as storm water runoff carrying hazardous debris. The area around the lake includes a variety of local animal species including white-tailed deer but none that are considered rare or endangered.

References

{{authority control Geography of Bridgeport, Connecticut Reservoirs in Connecticut Lakes of Fairfield County, Connecticut