Save the Sound Dispatch

By Melissa Pappas, Save the Sound Ecological Communications Specialist Not too long ago, millions of river herring swam through Connecticut’s rivers each spring. These silver highways of fish making their way back to the place they were hatched were showing signs of rebounding after decades of decline. Last year, Jon Vander Werff, Save the Sound’s fish biologist, counted almost 200 alewife, the larger of the two species of river herring, in a trap at Konold’s Pond on…

By David Seigerman, clean water communications specialist     At its ribbon cutting back in April, the John and Daria Barry Foundation Water Quality Lab gleamed with possibility. But like a racehorse in a stall or boat tucked safely in its slip, some things can’t fully be appreciated while they are at rest. This summer, Save the Sound’s new lab facility—the state-of-the-art centerpiece of our new office space in Larchmont, NY—is humming with activity, alive not only…

By David Seigerman, clean water communications specialist Drinkable, Fishable, Swimmable.   Sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it? Straightforward, unassailable, as fundamental as those other guiding principle triplets: “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” or “Truth, Justice, and the American Way.” It seems the least we can expect from the water that we drink, pull food from, play in, and sail on, is that it be clean and safe. That’s what the Clean Water Act (officially, the Federal…

By Kathy Czepiel, lands communications specialist, Save the Sound   Last fall, we wrote about a 2021 scientific dive off the coast of Plum Island, NY. Now the results are in, and they provide a deeper understanding of findings from an earlier dive while documenting 126 species of plants and animals beneath the surface of Long Island Sound. The report, Survey of Plum Island’s Subtidal Marine Habitats, was prepared by the New York Natural Heritage Program (NYNHP)…

By Katie Friedman, NY ecological restoration program manager, and Melissa Pappas, ecological communications specialist Coastal communities, home to almost a third of Americans1, are facing sea level rise and erosion. While we may think of these consequences as distant and future threats, they are already taking hold of local communities.   Artistic rendering provided by GEI and DMEA.   The residents of Douglas Manor, a community in Queens, New York, have not ignored these threats; rather, they…

By Jamie Vaudrey, UConn; Kevin O’Brien, CT DEEP; and Anthony Allen, Save the Sound On January 14, 2022, the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced that a network of state-owned properties in southeastern Connecticut and portions of the surrounding waters was designated as the nation’s 30th National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR). The NERR System is a network of coastal sites across the country designated to protect and study estuarine systems. Established through the Coastal Zone Management…

By Anthony Allen, Save the Sound Assistant Director of Ecological Restoration After the exceptional challenges of the annual Connecticut Coastal Cleanup in 2020, a record-breaking 2021 cleanup season brought a welcome dose of energy and reason for hope. The statewide cleanup effort, coordinated by Save the Sound and led by volunteers each year since 2002, held a limited number of in-person events and pivoted to a hybrid model that included “virtual” cleanups in 2020. The volunteers came…

Five Years of the Unified Water Study By Peter Linderoth, Director of Water Quality, Save the Sound The completion of the 2021 Unified Water Study season marks the fifth anniversary of this Long Island Sound-wide water quality monitoring program and the collaboration continues to grow! Launched by Save the Sound in 2017, the Unified Water Study (UWS) is a groundbreaking water quality monitoring program developed so groups around the Sound can collect comparable data on the environmental…

By Louise Harrison If names like moss animal and dog whelk sound counterintuitive, or if blood ark, skeleton shrimp, and spider crab seem mildly disturbing, would you be surprised they belong to creatures found around Plum Island, New York, home of a federal animal disease laboratory? Would you be relieved to know they’re perfectly normal marine animals in a healthy ecosystem in Eastern Long Island Sound? We know these and many other species live in Plum Island’s…

By Siddarth Motwani, LI Sound program assistance, and Laura McMillan, director of communications Tropical Storm Elsa made landfall in the early hours of Friday, July 9, 2021 dropping up to 5 inches of rain on New York and Connecticut in less than 12 hours. It was the earliest named hurricane on record, but the season was just getting started: a few weeks later, Henri came ashore at the Connecticut-Rhode Island line with blustery winds and heavy rains….