The purpose of this study was to document existing benthic organisms of the lower West River in New Haven and West Haven, Connecticut, in order to enable monitoring of salt marsh restoration. Seventeen sites were sampled between the Chapel Street Bridge and the mouth of the West River during the month of July 1995. All sites contained polychaete worms and other organisms typical of estuarine systems (Table 1). The northernmost sites also contained some freshwater organisms, the most abundant of which were chironomids and freshwater snails. The presence of estuarine fauna within tide-restricted portions of the West River is attributed primarily to the malfunctioning of tide gates during the sampling season in combination with a regional drought. These conditions provided a favorable environment for estuarine organisms to colonize (Table 2) and provided an opportunity to determine that restoration of the estuarine benthos would occur if estuarine water flow was returned to the river as a part of salt marsh restoration. Periodic sampling of the benthic community would be an effective component of restoration monitoring.