The conversion included a complete redesign and renovation of the building with a 30,000-square-foot addition to adhere to the school’s new theme at a cost of $42 million. In addition to expanded parking, a new cafeteria and a convenient drop-off area for school buses, the upgrades consisted of a butterfly vivarium; a 30-seat interactive film theater; a laboratory with 50 freshwater and salt water aquariums for fish breeding; a weather station; a glass-shrouded lobby with a fish pond and a greenhouse, where students grow their own lunch vegetables. Click on this environmental headline for more on this story.

Built more than 80 years ago to produce electricity, Candlewood Lake may become a publicly owned lake managed primarily for recreation and the environment. Click on this environmental Headline for more of this story from the Danbury News-Times.

The underdeveloped area around New Haven’s train station may soon get a little busier. Last Thursday, New Haven won a $390,000 grant from the state of Connecticut to develop a commercial district around Union Station and strengthen the transportation systems that link it to the rest of the city. The grant, part of a $5
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A partnership of Northeast states and jurisdictions including Delaware has just finalized an agreement to develop an electric vehicle network to promote and support energy-efficient transportation in the region – and a newly-announced grant of nearly $1 million from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) will kick start the new network’s first project. For more
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A transit project that took too long to materialize and is no longer valid is now a jobs bill. There are alternatives. Maybe we should just build some pyramids. The result would be the same and we would save $22 million a year. How’s that for fiduciary duty?

The Connecticut Public Transportation Commission will hold its final public hearing Monday night in Plainville to collect feedback for future mass-transit activities. The 7:30 p.m. session will be in the Council Chambers of the Plainville Municipal Center. For more on this story, visit: Last CT mass transit hearing Mon. in Plainville | Hartford Business. Blog
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A historic “castle” that is a local landmark may be demolished because the nuns’ order that owns it can’t afford to maintain the building. Volunteers are exploring the option of having Monroe buy the 15-room stone structure and its 141 acres as open space, said First Selectman Steve Vavrek. For more on this story, visit:
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Hi, If you or your organizations uses Environmental Headlines to help keep track of what’s going on in Connecticut’s environmental community or otherwise, please visit PayPal and make a small donation. We ALL know the value of small donations. There are companies and presidential campaigns built on small donations. And they work! If everyone who
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The city has received a $1.7 million federal transportation grant to help improve pedestrian access to Union Station. The grant will pay for improvements to a 1,620-foot stretch of Asylum and Farmington avenues. The upgrades will help create “safer, convenient and attractive routes to the station from surrounding residential, shopping and employment districts,” city officials
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North Haven Conservation Commission members were also available to help residents with questions about non-native insects that can kill large numbers of trees. In particular, they warned of the Emerald Ash Borer, the Asian Longhorned Beetle and the Sirex wood wasp. Members of the North Haven Trail Association chatted up the crowd with information on
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A request for proposals from companies that handle the disposal of municipal waste has resulted in new, potentially less costly options for the town. Town officials reported to the town council Tuesday night that, as a member town of the Central Connecticut Solid Waste Authority — a consortium of towns looking to create more competition
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Six weeks after a West Haven taxi company opened a compressed natural gas fueling station, a Bloomfield taxi service will unveil a CNG station of its own on Nov. 10.

Low impact development, or LID covers a host of techniques, zoning and engineering practices designed to more environmentally handle stormwater runoff, which in Connecticut has a major impact the water quality in the Sound.

Scientists at Columbia University say that the energy potential in non-recycled plastic is at least enough to fuel 6 million cars or power 5.2 million homes each year.

According to a study by the Earth Engineering Center at Columbia University, while mechanical recycling of plastics has continued to grow in the U.S., with 2.1 million tons of plastics recycled in 2009, less than 15% of the U.S. post-consumer plastics are being diverted from landfills by means of recycling and energy recovery.

Dave Bonan Gave Away His Car In 2001 And Has Since Logged Thousands Of Miles On His Bike

A light, taunting shower of rain fell in Funafuti recently. It lasted minutes, with the slightest film of moisture quickly burned away by the bright sun, dashing the hopes of this crowded, parched atoll. Funafuti and the other eight tiny islands that comprise the Pacific nation of Tuvalu, home to slightly more than 10,000 people,
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The town has paid $7.1 million to Hubbell Inc. for 376 acres. Jim Biggart, vice president and treasurer of Hubbell, and First Selectman James Zeoli said Monday that the closing was Friday.

The Long Island Sound Study is participating in the King Tide campaign in an effort to help communities and individuals visualize the impacts of sea level rise. And they need our help. Submit your photos or post them to the Facebook page by Nov. 4. Selected photographs will be posted to the Long Island Sound Study’s Web site in early December.

SAN DIEGO — Mexico ships televisions, cars, sugar and medical equipment to the United States. Soon, it may be sending water north. Western states are looking south of the border for water to fill drinking glasses, flush toilets and sprinkle lawns, as four major U.S. water districts help plan one of two huge desalination plant
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Rivers and streams in the United States are releasing enough carbon into the atmosphere to fuel 3.4 million car trips to the moon, according to Yale researchers in Nature Geoscience. Their findings could change the way scientists model the movement of carbon between land, water and the atmosphere.

The researchers assert that a significant amount of carbon contained in land is leaking into streams and rivers and then released into the atmosphere before reaching coastal waterways.