While power outages during Tropical Storm Irene and the October snowstorm left much of the state in the dark, they had a less-publicized but possibly more damaging result — millions of gallons of raw sewage spilled into waterways throughout Connecticut when backup power systems failed at waste treatment plants. The Hartford Courant reports.

One of the biggest challenges facing the Bridgeport region is the sewer system. Bridgeport’s system is in need of updating, Trumbull needs to find a way to lower its sewage costs, and Monroe doesn’t have one at all.

I like how they say “10 of the top environmental stories,” rather than “The top 10 stories … ” Nuclear reactor meltdown in Japan. EPA issues new rules limiting mercury emissions by power plants. Durban climate summit produces modest progress, as developing countries begin to acknowledge the need for binding limits on their carbon emissions.
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Until ASNAT Realty LLC and Evergreen Power LLC, who share an interest in the property and an address in Bayside, N.Y., conduct a full investigation of the contamination, finish an approved remediation plan for the site and show how it will prevent “adverse impacts” tied to the demolition, it can’t go forward, DEEP said.

WINDSOR — Progress on construction of the multiuse River Trail is on schedule, despite a tropical storm in August that downed trees and flooded the banks of the Connecticut River and a freakish October snowstorm that brought down even more trees. Work on the trail, which eventually is expected to run from the Barber Street
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Newington, East Hartford, Guilford and Madison have all signed contracts for services that will include sustainable waste disposal, recycling and composting.

A $600 million busway from New Britain to Hartford? Will you ever use it? Well, you the taxpayer paid for that misguided, wasteful project, and you paid for it with borrowed money. Guess who will end up paying those busway credit card bills? Your children and your grandchildren. Think they will ever use it? How
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Hospitals are investigating every option to reduce their expenses — from heat pumps in the basement to solar panels on the roof, and engineering firms are competing for their business.

Read more: http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Hoffman-Engineering-plays-key-role-in-Gaylord-2433890.php#ixzz1i7RqHTjj

Robert Burns, an organic vegetable farmer who owns Aiki Farms on Shewville Road, spoke during a meeting Friday in Hartford chaired by state Rep. Richard Roy, co-chairman of the General Assembly’s Environment Committee. State Sen. Andrew Maynard, D-Stonington, one of the committee’s two vice chairmen, also attended. For more on this story, visit: Ledyard farmer
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Environmental Headlines spends a lot of time culling environmental news, but we also spend a lot of time culling environmental events on our calendar. Some pay to be on the calendar because they know it’s one of the most visited pages on the website. Each year we also post thousands of links to thousands of
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Christopher Zurcher, editor of CT Environmental Headlines, is pleased to say he will be out of town from Jan 2 to Jan 8 celebrating his parents’ 60th wedding anniversary. “I’m very proud of them and will be expressing that and other sentiments along with my older brother and two sisters.” The Headlines, however, will be
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The Quinebaug River has a legacy of pollution. Historically, the Quinebaug, and its numerous tributaries, played an important role in the industrial development of Connecticut and Massachusetts with its mills and dams.

New London one of three harbors to be analyzed for economic development strategy The state has chosen a California-based company to study the economic development potential of three deep water ports in Connecticut, including New London. New London Patch reports. For more on this story, visit: Advisor Chosen To Complete Deep Water Port Study –
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In thinking about the best environmental reporting I’ve read this year, some excellent pieces came to mind on all sorts of topics: food, animals, wilderness, local politics, arcane areas of science. But I’m going to leave those aside, because this was no ordinary year. For environmentalists, 2011 was marked by deep soul-searching and seismic political
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Downtown Crossing was awarded a $23 million U.S Department of Transportation TIGER grant, one of the largest issued from Washington, to do the job. Yet the plan’s current design does not align itself with the stated intent of the project. The Hartford Courant reports.

The second and final piece of an $18 million to $20 million project that includes nearly 18,400 ground-mounted solar panels in two locations in the city was ready to generate.

Local solar company Greenskies Renewable Energy has offered the city a low 20-year fixed energy price in exchange for the use of city land on which to build three solar panel systems, at no cost to the city. The Hartford Courant reports.

When Adam King ’88 looks at Atwater Street, he sees wealth. He sees it in the overgrown backyards that could become gardens, in the rundown houses whose extra rooms could become common spaces, and in the out-of-work residents whose skills could transform the neighborhood. Atwater is in Fair Haven, one of the poorest areas of
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After the bumper 2011 legislative session, you might expect a modest wish list from Connecticut legislators, environmentalists and conservation advocates for 2012. Not happening. Nearly a year after those groups and the Malloy administration began an energy and environmental reform quest that resulted in the new Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, an unprecedented comprehensive
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Save the Sound gives Connecticut, New York and the U.S. government “barely passing” grades in several key areas in a year-end 2011 “State of the Sound” report that marks the first attempt to assign grades to efforts to protect Long Island Sound.

The report, released Wednesday, gave an “A” to overall efforts to preserve coastal habitat, an “A-” to efforts to preserve and improve migratory habitat through such innovative projects as new “fish ladders,” and a “B-” to efforts to combat beach litter. The New Haven Register reports.