Who Cares About the Sound License Plate Money?

This dude, who lives out in Norwich and writes for the Stonington Times, is wrong but he also makes an important point about funding for Long Island Sound and the Sound license plate fiasco that the Connecticut legislature has inflicted on the public, namely, if you can't get to the Sound, why should you care about it:

Point in fact, much of the Connecticut shoreline on the Long Island Sound is private property anyway, and even those with the special license plates can't have access to it. The only time the rest of us have anything to do with the shoreline is after hurricane season when someone is sought to help pay for repairs and rebuilding (usually on exactly the same spot where the damages all happened in the first place).

The Money Connecticut Drivers Paid for LI Sound License Plates Will Not Be Used for LI Sound

Connecticut has decided to use money raised by its Long Island Sound license plate program for things other than Long Island Sound. Does this seem familiar to anyone?

Several years ago the Connecticut legislature and governor started using money in the state's Clean Water Fund for things other than clean water projects, and it wasn't until a lot of environmental advocates noticed and took umbrage that the politicians in Hartford fully funded the CWF.

That money is for capital projects like upgrading sewage treatment plants on Long Island Sound. Money from the Sound license plate program generally goes to other Sound-related projects.

But if you shelled out $50 or $85 or $100 for a Sound license plate recently with the expection that the state would actually do what it said it would do with the money, the joke's on you. The new state budget takes all of the money -- $143 million over two years -- and sweeps it into the general fund to be used for anything Hartford wants.

Even more of a joke: the state plans to keep selling the license plates, even though the money won't be spent on the Sound.

The Connecticut Post has an excellent story about it, here (although it doesn't talk about the Clean Water Fund raid). Here's an excerpt:

Christopher Phelps, director of statewide initiatives for the nonprofit Environment Connecticut, said the Long Island Sound Fund was an unlikely victim of the budget process this year, since protection of the Sound is a bipartisan issue.

"The Long Island Sound license plate was created and people bought those license plates under the express understanding that extra money they were spending was going specifically to help protect and restore Long Island Sound," he said. "Now that money is just being swept right into the General Fund and the people who chose to paid that extra money for the specific purpose of protecting the Sound are not getting the money to go to that purpose."

Phelps said that over the decades, all the state's environmental protection needs have been chronically underfunded.

"But in Long Island Sound, being the signature natural resource for the state, we have made incredible progress at the state and national level, working in partnership effectively and with New York, cleaning it up over time and obviously, we're nowhere near done cleaning it up," he said. "One of the funding streams that has really helped make that happen has been things like the Long Island Sound license plate, knowing that the broad environmental protection funding in Connecticut has never really gotten where it should be."

And Terry Backer, the Soundkeeper and a member of the General Assembly, bluntly said that people shouldn't waste their money on the plates:

"My sense is they shouldn't buy the plates anymore," Backer said in a phone interview. "The main reason why people bought Long Island Sound plates is they cared about the Sound, they used it, or didn't use it, but they cared."

The Post story also has a good summary of projects the fund has paid for over the years:

All told, the money collected from the "Preserve the Sound" license plate program went to 294 projects since the fund was created in 1993. Here's a list of some of them:
-- $23,000 for the Bridgeport Board of Education's Aquaculture school for raising scallops in 1994.
-- 18,000 for the installation of floating docks at Shelton's Sunnyside boat facility on the Housatonic River.
-- $50,000 to help pay for the demolition of the former Long Beach cottage community in Stratford.
== $1,250 for Derby's Kellogg Environmental Center to create banners portraying drainage basins.
== $25,000 for the Connecticut Audubon Coastal Center in Milford to invest in a salt-marsh laboratory.
-- $4,150 to send water conservation brochures to every home in Darien.
-- $5,775 for a population study of diamondback terrapins by Fairfield University.
-- $13,000 for Seymour middle school students to study the Naugatuck River.
-- $60,000 for the Stamford-based Sound Waters to help with learning labs at Cove Island Park and with after-school programming.
-- $16,900 for Friends of Sherwood Island State Park's nature center displays.
-- $25,000 for a clean boating program by the Norwalk-based Long Island Soundkeeper Fund designed to cut down on human waste in the Sound.
-- $2,500 to help the New Canaan Nature Center Association Inc. establish a Girl Scout and Brownie program.
-- $140,000 in several grants to the Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk, including $18,614 for a live webcam at the Sheffield Island lighthouse in Norwalk harbor, a $24,000 traveling science show for elementary and middle schools and a $20,000 study of harbor seals.

Westchester Gets An Extension to Meets Its Sound Clean Up Goal

New York State environmental regulators have given Westchester County an additional three years, until 2017, to finish upgrading its Long Island Sound sewage treatment plants to meet state and federal nitrogen removal goals.

Westchester contributes only a small fraction of the nitrogen that causes the Sound's hypoxia problem, but it discharges that nitrogen directly into the part of the Sound that is most heavily effected. And conditions were bad last summer. (The maps that show the extent of hypoxia in 2008 are not up yet on the Connecticut DEP website but you can see maps from earlier years here. Click on any of the August maps and look for the black area, indicating the worst hypoxia conditions -- it's the area off Westchester, Nassau and part of Fairfield county.)

Connecticut, New York and the US EPA, with the support of local governments throughout the region, set the nitrogen reduction goal in 1998. The county was an enthusiastic supporter of the Sound cleanup, until it realized how much it was going to cost -- about $235 million. Here's what the Journal News reported:

To make the local improvements, the county would need to borrow the money over 30 years and charge higher rates for the 38,414 households and 6,804 businesses across the four districts.

The bulk of the new rates would go into effect in 2014, with incremental increases starting in 2010.

County officials note that it could have been worse: The state negotiated a smaller project and extended the deadline for completion three years to 2017.

Under earlier terms of the requirement, Westchester would have been required to spend an additional $100 million for the renovations.

New York State granted New York City a three-year extension three years ago. Connecticut seemed to falter on its way to meeting the 2014 goal when state legislators and the governor for years neglected the state's clean water fund (I'm not sure if they're back on track, but it's worth pointing out that Connecticut's clean water fund does provide state money to local governments for the Sound cleanup, something that New York State does not do).

If you need background, it's here, here and here. And there's plenty more here, at the Long Island Sound Study website.

The three-year extension for Westchester came after long negotiations between the county administration and the state. The county Board of Legislators still must approve it. There's a public hearing on Monday, December 8.

CFE/Save the Sound Says Rell Will Sign the Clean Water Fund

Here's their statement, just out:

A BIG thank you to all who worked so hard on Clean Water Funding over the past two years!

After fighting for sufficient state funding to ensure that our waterways and public health are protected, the bond package passed yesterday and Gov. M. Jodi Rell has agreed to sign it.

Clean Water Funding faired well. It will receive $90 million in general obligation bonds and $235 million in revenue bonds in 2008; and $90 million in general obligation bonds and $180 million in revenue bonds in 2009. This $90 million investment each year for the next two years is the highest level of general obligation funding the Clean Water Fund has received to date.

This bond package is Connecticut's first step in rebuilding its clean water legacy, so please take a moment to call or write your legislators and Gov. M. Jodi Rell to thank them for working to resuscitate the Clean Water Fund.

While $90 million in general obligation bonds over the next year is not enough to complete all of the state's clean water projects, it is a significant influx that should put Connecticut's goal to restore Long Island Sound's "Dead Zone" back on track. But due to the lack of state investment in recent years, we must invest even more in coming years to fully stop the annual sewage overflow releases. This means that over the next few years we will be working to increase these funding levels so that the Connecticut can live up to the promises it made its citizens.

The federal government and the state of Connecticut set two critical goals when it promised the state's citizens clean and healthy water. The agreement was to stop raw sewage overflows into rivers and Long Island Sound by 2020 and to restore the low-oxygen Dead Zone in Long Island Sound by 2014. To meet these goals our municipalities need a fully functioning Clean Water Fund – the primary mechanism for funding wastewater treatment and sewer projects in Connecticut.

Only Two Years Late, But Connecticut Legislators Approve Clean Water Fund Money Yet Again

When Connecticut legislators approved $110 million for the Clean Water Fund in September (as part of a much larger bonding package), Governor Rell vetoed it. Yesterday the General Assembly approved $90 million for the Clean Water Fund.

Leah Schmalz, in a statement from Save the Sound, says it’s a great accomplishment and a great day for the Sound (although apparently not as great a day as it was in September, when Save the Sound CFE declared it the greatest day in the history of Long Island Sound).

Here’s part of the statement that Save the Sound/CFE sent out in her name:

“Connecticut is beginning to rebuild its clean water legacy,” said Leah Schmalz, director of legislative and legal affairs for Save the Sound, a program of Connecticut Fund for the Environment. “Our leaders are to be congratulated for working to resuscitate the state’s clean water investments. This $90 million general obligation bond allotment keeps alive a vision of clean rivers, safe waters and a healthy Long Island Sound.”

The federal government and the state of Connecticut set two critical goals when it promised the state’s citizens clean and healthy water. The agreement was to stop raw sewage overflows into rivers and Long Island Sound by 2020 and to restore the low-oxygen Dead Zone in Long Island Sound by 2014. To meet these goals our municipalities need a fully functioning Clean Water Fund – the primary mechanism for funding wastewater treatment and sewer projects in Connecticut.

“While $90 million in general obligation bonds over the next year is not enough to complete all of the state's clean water projects, it is a significant influx that should put Connecticut’s goal to restore Long Island Sound’s “Dead Zone” back on track,” said Schmalz. “Due to the lack of state investment in recent years, we must invest even more in coming years to fully stop the annual release of 2 billion gallons of sewage overflow. We look forward to working with our elected officials and individual towns to ensure that Clean Water Fund financing is adequate to meet these basic clean water and human health objectives.”

“This $90 million investment is the highest general obligation funding level to date; it is not only an investment in the water quality of Long Island Sound, it is an investment in our future,” Schmalz said.

The funding is two years’ late, and there’s no word that I know of about whether Rell will sign it, but if it survives Connecticut will finally go back to meeting its obligations.

Connecticut Gets EPA Award for Innovative Program While the State Dithers on Funding for the Sound Cleanup. (Why Doesn't NY Have a Trading Program?)

The U.S. EPA gave an award to Connecticut yesterday for its program of allowing sewage treatment plant operators from around the state to buy and sell credits for reducing the amount of nitrogen they dump into Long Island Sound.

The award is a great example of rewarding the good (the trading program) and ignoring the bad (Connecticut’s complete irresponsibility in refusing the put money into its Clean Water Fund) that might work with a naughty 6-year-old but probably will prompt legislators and Governor Rell to pat themselves on the back and continue to ignore the funding issue.

On the other hand, by singling out Connecticut’s nitrogen trading for praise, EPA implicitly asks why New York doesn’t have a similar program. This news story asks the question explicitly and reports that New York State’s answer is, apparently, “We don’t allow a nitrogen trading program because we don’t allow a nitrogen trading program.”

The New York state Department of Environmental Conservation responded to questions about the issue with an e-mailed statement that the state had chosen to require each plant to meet a specific limit. The e-mail, from agency spokeswoman Lori O'Connell, gave no reason for not using the trading program, except to say that "the loading limits established for (each treatment plant) will result in lower levels of nitrogen reaching the Sound."

The same story makes the excellent point, from Westchester County’s view, that a trading program might be cheaper and more efficient than the one-size-fits-all approach:

With New York state's sewage plants on the Sound facing the same requirements, Westchester officials have asked Albany in the past to allow a similar credit-trading program. Such an initiative might help the county avoid costly work that would otherwise be needed mostly at the county's sewage treatment plants in New Rochelle and Mamaroneck, said Deputy County Executive Larry Schwartz.

The state has rejected the idea.

"The state of New York is being shortsighted in trying to force counties like Westchester to take the most expensive and onerous route toward taxpayers in helping reduce nitrogen loading in Long Island Sound," Schwartz said yesterday. "They have refused and neglected to pursue and implement less costly options, including creating a New York state nitrogen-trading program."

Here’s EPA’s press release (see if you can find the one big error in it).

EPA’s announcement, by the way, received zero coverage, from what I can tell, in Connecticut newspapers, which presumably saw it as pure PR and therefore not newsworthy. Obviously a bit of awareness and imagination could have turned it into a good story – “Connecticut receives EPA award for an innovative program while the state’s elected officials continue to dither on the funding for the Sound cleanup.”

(Two papers, however, rewrote an EPA press release also issued yesterday that announced a bunch of grants for governments and non-profits working on the Sound, here and here.)

The good news though is that, coincidentally, Leah Schmalz of Save the Sound/CFE had an op-ed piece ready to go in the Hartford Courant. It implicitly highlights the irony of giving Connecticut an award while its elected officials ignore the Sound’s funding needs:

When the federal government and the state of Connecticut promised the state's citizens clean and healthy water 30 years ago, the goal was to stop the two billion gallons of raw sewage that enters our waterways each year by separating combined sewer overflows and to restore the "dead zone" in Long Island Sound by removing approximately 60 percent of the nitrogen discharges from the sewage treatment plants in the state.

Despite years of great progress, the Clean Water Fund - the primary mechanism for funding those wastewater treatment and sewer projects in Connecticut - began to fall apart when the legislature decided to shift that money to other non-water-related purposes in 2002.

The effect of this failure to adequately invest in the Clean Water Fund began to accelerate.

The value of a well-financed Clean Water Fund to protect the public's health became painfully clear in 2005. That year Hartford's city sewer flooded the basements of local residents with raw sewage and the number of beach closings increased to 200 - a nearly 10 percent increase from the previous year.

The value of a well-financed Clean Water Fund was reinforced in 2006 when inadequate funding for nitrogen reduction forced the state Department of Environmental Protection to approve the discharge of more than 1.5 million more pounds of oxygen-depleting nitrogen into Long Island Sound than was allowed under existing permits.

Last year, it became obvious that if we did not fix this problem, Connecticut's effort to meet its obligations to its citizens and the environment would be set back by decades.

During the last legislative session, Gov. Rell and the legislature were called on to put the Clean Water Fund back on the short list of top priorities.

Although $110 million in general obligation bonds in each of the next two years is not enough to complete all of the state's clean water projects, it would be a significant influx that could help keep raw sewage from entering our waterways, create high-quality jobs and restore Long Island Sound.

A Special Session in Hartford But Not For Clean Water

From what Soundkeeper Terry Backer says, it looks like the Clean Water Fund is dead for the year...

Yesterday I received an order of the Governor delivered by the state police, as all legislators did, commanding a special session on Wednesday. In her proclamation the Governor announced she will veto the bonding bill, Emergency Certified Senate Bill 1501 that contains the Clean Water Fund money.

The special session will be to pass a bond authority for municipal and regional school district so they will not have to borrow money to pay contractors for school construction. I guess she is unaware that many of the same towns will need to borrow money to pay for the ongoing improvement and construction of sewage treatment plants. There must be only a very small window in the Governors office reducing their view of the world.

Long Island Sound is suffering from some very bad politics on all fronts. I am hoping to salvage the Clean Water Money at a later date. The leaders of the legislature and the Governor need to forget special projects, which are not all bad, and take care of the big needs. However, its broad based power plays at work – it’s like a war, there seems the need to shed a lot of blood before the resolution that was clear in the beginning can be implemented. And Long Island Sound is caught up in the blood letting.

I stay at it.
Backer

1:20 p.m. update: A couple of second thoughts: How much of all this is political posturing is hard to tell. But it's worth keeping in mind that Rell hasn't actually vetoed anything yet, and the Democrats have enough votes to override a veto, if it's that important to them. So there's still a chance, if the pols recognize that enough people want it to pass.

Governor Rell's and the General Assembly's Clean Water Farce

Just a few days ago, after the Connecticut General Assembly passed a bonding package that included $110 million for clean water projects, including Long Island Sound, Connecticut Fund for the Environment was proclaiming it “the greatest day for clean water and Long Island Sound in twenty years.”

If the Hartford Courant is to be believed (here), it’s possible that CFE was a tiny bit premature in its proclamation (either that or the standard for “greatest day” is really low). Here’s what the Courant reported:

Rell took the latest step in the long-running stalemate by vowing to veto a $3.2 billion general-obligation bond package passed late Thursday, saying the borrowing would plunge Connecticut too deeply into debt.

Legislative leaders flatly rejected a demand by the governor that the General Assembly return next week to approve a pared-down bonding package to cover the state's school-construction obligations, which will increase next month by another $44 million.

Legislators are saying that they might not get back to it until February.

In truth, though, the attention shouldn’t be on the perhaps-mistaken optimism of CFE. It should be on Rell and the General Assembly. I’m sure there’s some political posturing going on, but nevertheless the situation in Hartford is disgraceful. (There's some year-old background info here, which will give you an idea of how long this farce has been going on.)

Connecticut Legislators Approve $110 Million for Clean Water Fund But Will It Survive a Veto by the Governor?

Finally the Connecticut State Legislature passed a bonding package that includes money for the Clean Water Fund -- $110 million a year over two years, which is plenty to get Connecticut’s portion of the Long Island Sound cleanup back on track.

But there are two points of view about what yesterday’s vote means.

Curt Johnson, of the Connecticut Fund for the Environment, left Hartford last night proclaiming a great victory.

Terry Backer, the Soundkeeper and a Legislator who represents Stratford, thinks victory is not at all assured. He expects Governor Rell to veto the package and says the legislators will almost certainly have “to go back and try again.”

First, here’s what Curt wrote in an e-mail to the Long Island Sound Watershed Alliance:

Tonight we are all partners in a remarkable re-investment in clean water. Due to all of your support and the incredible leadership of Senator Eileen Daily and Representative Cam Staples (co-chairs of finance), Senator Don DeFronzo and Representative Keeley (co-chairs of bonding sub-committee) and the steadfast support from Don Williams and Jim Amann, *this marks the best news for Long Island Sound clean water funding in two decades -- $110 million in clean water fund general obligation bonds for both this and next year. * While many, many other legislators came out in strong support of this renewed investment, Representative Betty Boukus deserves special thanks for her dogged advocacy and determination.

After nearly two decades of consistent funding by the Connecticut legislature, excellent administration by the CT DEP and great clean water progress, the fund was raided extensively beginning in 2003. No money, no progress, a fading chance of meeting critical clean water goals. We realized we needed to join hands with all of you to make real change possible.

Thanks to the many of you who joined us in the Clean Water Investment Coalition successfully calling for a major re-investment in our clean water future. Not only environmental groups, but civil engineers, unions, the Connecticut Conference for Municipalities, sewer districts. Clean Water. Good Jobs. A Strong Economy. And thanks for all your phone calls, emails and letters that brought
this issue alive for legislators.

While the DEP and towns have made great progress, there is still a long way to go. For example, each year 2 billion gallons of raw sewage flows from combined sewer overflows into local rivers and the Sound during rain events.

Two billion gallons of raw sewage dumped into our waterways each year is a shocking level of pollution. It is the equivalent of two tankers—like you see out on our Sound—each dumping a full load of raw sewage into our waterways every week. This $220 million investment is the highest funding level to date and is a critical step in combating this public health threat. This is not only an investment in the water quality of Long Island Sound; it is an investment in our future.

So thank you all for your great work on this issue. It is important to recognize our big environmental victories!

Terry Backer however isn’t quite as sanguine. He sent this to me at 1:30 in the morning:

I just got home from the State House after a good 14 hours in session. The road from Hartford to Stratford is longer at 1:00 AM. Well, as the saying goes I have good news and bad news. The legislature passed a bonding bill that included $110 million dollars per year for two-year biennium for the State Clean Water Fund; the bill now goes to the Governor’s office. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that the Governor has made overtones that she may veto the bill. Apparently she has concerns that the rather large bonding bill that surpasses her maximum by something like $600 million and will cause the state’s bond rating to be lower by the bond rating organization thus trigger higher interest cost.

I had hoped that an agreement might have been reached to take care of the essentials like schools, clean water, roads and alike and all the other items that drove the cost higher left for another session. In that way the people would have got what they needed and the legislators who ask for all this stuff would have gone home without the bacon but with the pride of knowing they took care of the important matters that affect everyone. That did not happen. Now we are left with uncertainty on Clean Water and will almost certainly have to go back and try again.

If a remark made to me by one legislator on the way out is any indications I am worried. I said to him we should have just taken care of the big important projects and avoided this show down. He looked at me and said “Hey I haven’t got any bonding for my town in three years”. A statement that is certainly untrue. What he meant is he hadn’t got and special project bonding.

I am afraid he would sacrifice Clean Water money for a new ball field, a town hall make over or some other like project. I hope he is in the minority.

I voted for the bill. I ensure everyone that the Oyster Shell Coalition will keep up the fight.

Terry Backer

I found two stories today that talk about some of the pork barrell projects that Terry thinks will prompt Rell's veto, here and here.

Will Connecticut Finally Decide This Week What to Do About the Clean Water Fund?

Connecticut's General Assembly reconvenes on Thursday to vote on a bond package, which will include funding for a lot of things, including the Clean Water Fund that they and Governor Rell have been all-but-ignoring for two years. (If you're interested in the political back-and-forth, read this.)

Rell wants $70 million a year. Here's what she said in a September 4 letter to the legislators:

Currently, we have indicated that our general obligation bonding will not exceed $1.25 billion this year. While this seems like a high number, you must remember that this number includes $715 million for school construction, $115 million for UCONN 2000, $75 million for the Connecticut State University system, $50 million for the Community Technical College system, $70 million for Clean Water and Sewage projects, $20 million for the Small Town Economic Assistance Program (STEAP), $10 million for the state’s open space program, and $30 million for the Local Capital Improvement Program (LOCIP).

The legislators apparently want more than $70 million -- perhaps as much as $140 million to make up for the lost years.

Connecticut's Clean Water Fund

I'm told that the Connecticut General Assembly is likely to go into special session on Friday, September 14,* and will take up the Clean Water Fund then. Of course I've heard similar things a lot in the past, so we'll see.

*Tuesday update: Now I'm hearing September 19.

No Clean Water Fund, Broadwater Decision Delayed, New Beaches Open and Not

Is it possible that the state of Connecticut still hasn't put money into the Clean Water Fund -- in other words, still hasn't decided to meet its responsibility to help clean up Long Island Sound (among other things)? Hard to believe but apparently true: when I got back from two weeks away there were 52 e-mails in my inbox with "Long Island Sound" in the subject line, and none of them were about the Clean Water Fund.

New York's Department of State will wait until December before deciding whether Broadwater's proposal for a liquefied natural gas terminal in Long Island Sound is consistent with state policies for use of the coastal zone. This is old news -- it broke while I was away -- but it's worth noting nonetheless. Here's the only report about it that I saw.

The state has been buying a lot of terrific parkland on Long Island but it doesn't have the money to open them to the public. The new park on the Sound in Jamesport is among them. In Milford, meanwhile, the city is creating a small new beach out of an area that's been a mess for a while:

When the city acquired the site several years ago, it was covered with large boulders, wood scraps and other debris that officials believed were the remnants of houses destroyed in the 1938 hurricane.

Is Connecticut's Clean Water Fund a Waste of Effort and Money?

A fellow named Grant Weaver, who is president of a company in New London that does wastewater treatment plant operations and c onsulting, says Connecticut's Clean Water Fund results in pork barrel spending that isn't really necessary for treatment plants to do nitrogen removal. Here is part of what he wrote, in yesterday's New London Day:

If not lobby for more money for more equipment, what are the friends of Long Island Sound to do? Short answer: Raise your expectations. Empower wastewater personnel and expect them to be more successful. The results — as I have observed in Norwich, Willimantic, Waterbury, Cranston, R.I., Newport, R.I., and elsewhere — will be dramatic. The people who operate and maintain wastewater treatment equipment convert sewage into clean water. Most are proud of their work. The machinery that Clean Water Funds provide merely processes waste.

One of The Day articles used the Mystic wastewater treatment plant as an example. For years, the facility was not adequately serving the needs of Mystic. Six years of recently concluded planning shows that a $15 million Clean Water Fund expenditure is needed for the Mystic sewage treatment plant “to improve water quality.”

While the experts were doing their planning, the treatment plant staff took it upon themselves to make the facility work better. Today, with little to no investment in new equipment, the Mystic wastewater treatment plant is doing a very good job protecting the environment. This summer's nitrogen discharge is just one-third of last year's. Using the equipment on hand, an educated, dedicated wastewater treatment plant work force made changes. How? Why? Because they stubbornly believed they could.

The Mystic story has been repeated elsewhere. Six years ago, a minor investment in the Willimantic wastewater treatment plant provided the equipment for that facility's staff to bring the nitrogen discharge under state requirements. No Clean Water Funds were used.

Michael Gerardi, Penn State University professor and author of “Nitrification and Denitrification in the Activated Sludge Process,” is working with the Farmington wastewater-treatment-plant staff to reduce the release of nitrogen at little to no capital expense. His work is not complete, but the early efforts are encouraging. Because he has been successful at dozens of treatment plants around the country, I am confident that he and the Farmington treatment plant staff will, before the end of summer, reduce the nitrogen to state guidelines.

Unfortunately these are the kinds of assertions that I'm in no position to contradict or confirm. But perhaps someone in the Connecticut DEP or at Connecticut Fund for the Environment has an opinion on it?

The New London Day Advocates Like No Other Paper for Long Island Sound

Of all the newspapers in all the communities on the coast of Long Island Sound, the furthest away from the western end, where seriously low levels of dissolved oxygen have caused an ecological crisis for well over two decades, is the New London Day. New Lodnon is almost 100 miles from the heart of the dead zone. And yet The Day is covering the Sound’s most important issue, and advocating for a comprehensive cleanup – to include the federal government, the state governments, local governments, and residents of New York and Connecticut – like no other paper.

The Day asked Greg Stone, who retired as deputy editorial page editor a couple of months ago, to organized a public forum about the Sound’s hypoxia problem (it was on June 19 and was The Day’s third forum on Sound issues this year; I participated in one in early April, on Broadwater, but I would have happily given up that one for the June 19 forum, alas). Greg wrote a good account of it yesterday, here.

Then read the case that Leah Schmalz, of Connecticut Fund for the Environment, makes in favor of the Connecticut General Assembly and Governor Rell putting enough money in the Clean Water Fund, which thus far this year they have neglected to do yet again, here.

And finally an editorial. Some excerpts follow, but you should read the whole thing, here:

Connecticut needs to build and maintain a healthy Clean Water Fund, which helps finance improvements to the sewer works in the Sound's watershed. The state Department of Environmental Protection has calculated it would require about $160 million a year merely to keep up with approved projects, not to mention the totality of the $5 billion in needed improvements.

Congress needs to step up to the plate again. The federal government, which invested heavily in the original public sewage systems, has left the expense of maintaining and improving those facilities to state and local governments, as it has with other important public investments. The health of Long Island Sound is a responsibility the federal government shares. Washington needs to become a significant investor again. The state legislatures in New York and Connecticut must urge that it do so….

With investment funds in the pipeline, government should turn its attention to land-use planning that will protect the Sound from damage from pollution. Connecticut needs to revisit its coastal management law and develop a more comprehensive plan to protect the Long Island Sound watershed….

The mere fact that the federal and state governments refer to a “dead zone” the size of southeastern Connecticut in Long Island Sound ought to drive public policy and public opinion in such directions.

The reality that there is such an expanse of water that has lost its capacity to support life and that the cause is likely manmade is another way of saying man is killing the Sound through carelessness and bad choices. But there is an alternative. It is not too late. People can take steps to restore this natural treasure to health and keep it healthy through enthusiastic stewardship.

They should.

The should, indeed. And other newspapers should take a lesson from the New London Day.

Connecticut's Council on Environmental Quality Says the State Isn't Doing So Great on Long Island Sound Issues

The Connecticut Council on Environmental Quality released its annual report yesterday and it says the state isn't doing so well, particularly on water quality and Long Island Sound issues. An excerpt:

Prospects for Long Island Sound are unclear. With substantial investment in sewage treatment plants, Connecticut met short-term goals for removing nitrogen from sewage. The condition of the Sound has improved but hypoxia (low levels of oxygen in the water) continues ... . Hypoxia is expected to persist at least hrough 2014, the year that Connecticut and New York have pledged to meet their ultimate nitrogen-removal goals. Beach closings have been fairly constant ... , and lobsters hit a new low in 2006,,,

The treatment of sewage is much better than it was a generation ago, and about half of the major sewer overflows were corrected by two decades of reconstruction....

State government and the shellfish industry invested several million dollars since 1987 in the improvement and monitoring of oyster beds, and the result has been a fairly constant expansion of the areas suitable for shellfish growth.... Oyster stocks were hit hard by two diseases in 1997 and 1998 and have not yet recovered.

More than 500 acres of compromised tidal wetlands have been restored to ecological health by direct action of the state and many partners since 1994. During that time, only a few acres were lost to permitted activities. (Many old unpermitted disturbances and structures remain, however.) ...

The overall result was slow and steady progress, but not enough to reach most statewide goals and not across all programs. Some of the greatest improvements have been achieved in programs that require only small amounts of public funding, such as wetlands conservation, air pollution control and industrial waste management. Meanwhile, programs that require substantial state investment are lagging.

That last sentence is a clear reference to the Clean Water Fund. A year ago I criticized the CEQ for issuing a report that ignored the state legislature's refusal to put adequate money in the Clean Water Fund and the CEQ's executive director, Karl Wagener, responded that it's been their policy to follow actual environmental trends rather than political or policy trends, which was a reasonable answer. You can read what both of us wrote, here.

The full report can be found here, and news accounts are here and here.

Connecticut Legislators Pat Themselves on the Back But Neglect the Clean Water Fund

Connecticut legislators were practically standing in line yesterday to tell the New Haven Register what a great job they did in Hartford on environmental issues. Except of course, as the Register points out, they neglected to provide money for the Clean Water Fund and the cleanup of Long Island Sound. From the Register:

"I think we've done quite well this year," said state Rep. Richard Roy, D-Milford...

Senate committee co-chairman Sen. Bill Finch, D-Bridgeport, said that, "From biodiesel investment to school bus emissions, this budget addresses a number of the major environmental initiatives of the session."...

The environment committee's top Republican, state Senate Minority Leader John McKinney, R-Fairfield, agreed. "On balance, we did a very good job," he said.

Connecticut Clean Water Fund Limbo (How Low Can You Go?)

Connecticut legislators have agreed on a budget, but have they decided what to do about the Clean Water Fund and the bonding package it's supposed to be included in, which, as you may remember, they've neglected for years, thus jeopardizing Connecticut's portion of the Long Island Sound cleanup? Here's what a correspondent of mine tells me:

Despite the budget being finalized by the General Assembly (and expectations that the governor will sign it) there is no bond package because they are looking at making significant changes in state bonding action ... this means Clean Water Fund is still in limbo.

Background info here and here.

"Don't Sweat the Clean Water Fund Money"

No action yet in Hartford on the Clean Water Fund, but Soundkeeper/Legislator Terry Backer tells me not to worry. He told me in an e-mail:

... don't sweat the clean water fund money. I am pretty sure it's a lock. [Senator Bill] Finch and I worked with the Finance committee to get the money in and everyone including the Governor wanted it.

So we'll see.

Long Island Sound Assignment Desk

Here are some assignments for local reporters:

Judy Benson reported in the New London Day today (here) that the firm the New York State Department of State hired to look for alternative sites for a floating liquefied natural gas terminal believes that the Atlantic Ocean might be a better location than Long Island Sound. We need to know, however, just how influential it will be with the state officials who are trying to decide whether to give Broadwater the go-ahead? Is it ample ammunition for the Department of State to decline to issue a coastal zone consistency permit? Is it the cover the Governor Spitzer needs to say no?

There were stories in the Connecticut papers today about the end of the legislative session in Hartford and of the budget battle between the governor and the Legislature. But what happened to the Clean Water Fund? Legislators and Governor Rell paid a lot of lip service to it earlier this year, but thus far nothing has been approved. Will Connecticut again evade its responsibility to help clean up Long Island Sound?

Speaking of which, what is Westchester County’s plan for nitrogen removal at its four Sound shore sewage treatment plants?

Make a Phone Call for a Clean Long Island Sound

Connecticut Fund for the Environment is trying to turn up the heat on the leaders of the Connecticut Senate and Assembly, by asking supporters to make phone calls in support of full funding for the Clean Water Fund.

You remember the Clean Water Fund and Connecticut's dismal performance. As CFW put it in an e-mail from this morning:

Please add your voice to the numerous clean water advocates from across the state who will be calling President Pro Tempore Don Williams and House Speaker Jim Ammann to say that the recommended $110 million in general obligations bonding for the Clean Water Fund is a must if we are to protect the health of our citizens and environment. ...

In recent years Connecticut decimated the Clean Water Fund - at one point the legislature not only failed to invest, it actually took away $80 million. But this year our Governor and state Legislators recommitted themselves to a healthy future by allocating $110 million in general obligation bonds to the Clean Water Fund.

So call them: Senate President Don Williams (800) 842-1420

House Speaker Jim Amann at (800) 842-8267

If you need more background, scroll through this link (in particular look for the post in which Amann dismisses clean water funding by saying that sewage plants aren't sexy), or read this.