Hard to imagine that in April 2007 a hundred-year storm had raged through the neighborhood, taking more than 200 feet of river bank with it, and leaving Mr. Fleming's yard awash in detritus and his house teetering on the brink of a small cliff.

Rebuilding the foundations of the house and other site reconstruction was within his competence, but repairing the environmental damage and stabilizing the embankment was big time engineering and big time money.

Thanks to a program administered by the Natural Resources Conservation Service, a division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a grant was secured covering three-quarters of the cost.

The state Department of Environmental Protection contributed the remaining quarter, for a total of $104,377.

Despite heart-stopping delays largely caused by federal and state agencies along the way, completion of the job beat the June 30 funding deadline by a mere two weeks.

Of course, it wasn't that simple, including the fact that the town of Southbury had to apply for the grant and pay the costs upfront, all of which is reimbursed by NRCS and the DEP Emergency Water Protection Program.

Mr. Fleming recites a litany of thanks and appreciation to the town including the Board of Selectmen, the Public Works Department, the Land Use department and particularly its administrator, DeLoris Curtis, who shepherded the applications through myriad approvals. ("DeLoris is the best!")

Then there are the politicians national, state and local; organizations including Trout Unlimited, the Pomperaug River Watershed Coalition; the Southbury Land Trust. Not forgotten was DEP, the Corps of Engineers and the NRCS engineering professionals.

He has kudos, too, for the contractor, George Stone, who trucked in more than 1,000 tons of rock boulders. The Stone team installed the remediation designed by NRCS, starting with 30-inch thick riprap along 240 feet of riverbank held secure with a rock keyway cut into the river bed, topped with 30 inches of gravel, topsoil and, finally, seeding for goundcover.

Trees and shrubs destroyed in the flood or removed during construction were replaced with plantings of different species including mountain laurel, bayberry, dogwood and juniper.

In a very wet spring and early summer season, the system is holding fast and water is staying in the river where it belongs.

John Fleming is a happy man today.