Save the Sound, a program of Connecticut Fund for the Enivornment, recently teamed up with Solar Youth “to teach some great kids in New Haven about American eels and fish passage.”
Bill 1138, An Act Concerning Connecticut’s Clean Energy Goals, has a number of good features, but poses a serious threat to Connecticut’s rivers. Under some circumstances, it allows environmentally harmful hydropower to be sold in the lucrative Class I market, which is presently reserved for environmentally beneficial hydropower. Here are the numbers for the governor’s office: (860) 566-4840;
(800) 406-1527.
Along the shores of New York Harbor, scientists are investigating whether this ubiquitous bivalve can be grown in urban areas as a way of cleansing coastal waters of sewage, fertilizers, and other pollutants. The idea of using bivalves like mussels, oysters, and clams to purify waterways has been on the minds of conservationists and scientists
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Last week, Save the Sound partnered with the Cornell University Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County for our third third event engaging volunteers in restoring the Sound’s submerged aquatic vegetation – eelgrass. Friday’s event took place at the Clinton Town Marina.
Water may become the oil of the mid-21st century. Half the world is worried about, if not fighting over, water. In this country, a record 55 percent of the land area in the Lower 48 states suffered drought conditions last year. Wouldn’t it make sense for Connecticut to get a handle on its water supply?
“It’s a call to attention,” said Fritz Horstman, who created the 100-foot long public sculpture throughout the day. “I’m not against plastic water bottles. We need them. But we should also understand the water cycle, since we have a river about 10 blocks from here.”
Billions of gallons of raw sewage and contaminated stormwater surge every year into the waterways and onto the streets of New England, as a 40-year-old pledge to clean America’s lakes, rivers and streams remains unfulfilled.
A bill proposed by State Rep. John Hampton, D-Simsbury, would place a moratorium on all water diversion projects until a statewide water plan is developed and implemented. Click on this Environmental Headline for more from Jeffrey McCutcheon and Andrew Silva in The Hartford Courant.
The Metropolitan District Commission will be conducting its state-mandated annual watershed sanitary survey and inspection program beginning in April. The purpose of the program, which will continue through November, is to prevent contamination of the MDC’s drinking water supplies as a result of, among other things, septic system failure, erosion, runoff, and other potential pollutants.
South Norwalk residents – rich and poor – worked together Thursday evening for the protection of their common interest: the air and water quality in their mutual neighborhood. Click on this Environmental Headline for more from Nancy Chapman’s Nancy on Norwalk blog.
The Metropolitan District Commission is back in the spotlight as the Simsbury Conservation Commission criticized the company for not responding to a public request on behalf of the Farmington River Basin communities.
There are 409 dams in the Farmington River Watershed, according to the Farmington River Watershed Association.
Make that 408 once you’ve subtracted the former Spoonville Dam in Tariffville and East Granby which was removed in July 2012. Click this Environmental Headline for more of this story from Simsbury Patch.
At present, Connecticut and New York wastewater treatment facilities have done an excellent job in working to meet or beat their permitted nitrogen discharge targets, and we are on pace to meet, or at least get pretty close to the original goal of a 58 percent reduction in nitrogen loading from this source by 2014. However, sewage is not the only source of nitrogen into Long Island Sound, so this reduction represents a significantly smaller percentage of the overall amount of nitrogen entering the Sound from all sources.
A law restricting use of two common mosquito-control chemicals known to harm lobsters could be a step toward salvaging Connecticut’s beleaguered stocks of the crustaceans, which once supported a $100 million-a-year industry, state lobstermen said this week. Click on this environmental headline for more from the Stamford Advocate.
The Sea Grant programs of Connecticut and New York, with the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Long Island Sound Study program, announced today that they will fund research grants that will help efforts to improve water quality and adapt to climate change.
The two projects, totaling $708,308, involve teams of researchers in three states, making it a truly collaborative effort.
Andersen provided a very graphic and depressing picture of the Sound’s condition back in the summer of 1987, when the waters were so low in oxygen and so high in hydrogen sulfide that lobsters and fish were actually crawling or flipping out of the water in desperation. Scuba divers trying to survey the extent of
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As UConn and Mansfield envision our future over the next 50 years, it’s clear that an additional source of water will be required to meet the needs of both the town and the campus in the coming decades. Our shared goal is not just development, but sustainable development, of important proposed projects such as the long-awaited UConn Tech Park on our North Campus, a managed retirement community in Storrs, and the commercial redevelopment of the Four Corners area, about a mile north of campus on Route 195.
Sea level in Long Island Sound is expected to rise 1½ feet by 2050, according to testimony from Leah Schmalz, Save the Sound’s director of legislative and legal affairs.
The area has higher than normal levels of erosion and inefficient water treatment, according to a story on the UConn engineering website.
Here’s a ray of inspiration for anyone who cares about protecting and restoring our natural treasures.
