Category: Q River Fund projects

NEW HAVEN REGISTER — Quinnipiac University has received an $18,000 grant from the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven to continue its investigation of pollution in the Quinnipiac River.

In the 1970s, the Keep America Beautiful advertisements with the “Crying Indian” turned into one of the most iconic anti-pollution images of all time. Four decades later, The Connecticut Coalition for Environmental Justice (CCEJ) is taking inspiration from this classic campaign to educate the next generation about the importance of caring for the Quinnipiac River.

“We want people to understand that there are a lot of issues that cause pollution that are our responsibility as individuals,” said CCEJ Executive Director Sharon Lewis. “We talk about industry. But we as individuals also have to be accountable.”

Starting with a history of the Quinnipiac River and its original inhabitants, the Quinnipiac tribe, CCEJ’s education program teaches how the river was once a focal point of oyster harvesting and commerce.  CCEJ members are bringing the program to schools, senior centers, places of worship, and community centers, located on and around the Quinnipiac River watershed.

Lewis said that in running the program, she was amazed to discover how little people knew about the river and its history.

“A lot of people don’t even have a clue about the tribe or its culture, or anything about the Quinnipiac River. We wanted to bring people all the way back and feel a bond with nature.”

About 1,000 people have attended the education programs so far, and Jones said she hopes that the history of the river will be included in the curriculums of area schools. In addition to the history, the program teaches about the impacts of pollution on the environment and ecosystem.

“We go from the good to the bad, how the Quinnipiac River became one of the most infamous rivers because if its pollution,” Lewis said. “Everybody is complicit. Boaters, people fishing, people on edge of water. It’s all about appreciating water. Clean water saves lives.”

The coalition has also reached out to people they find fishing in areas known to be polluted.

“People were shocked to find out that these waterways are poisonous.”

New Haven Land Trust battles invasives by planting new native trees 

photos by Ian Christmann

“You can never declare victory,” said John Cox, a longtime New Haven Land Trust volunteer, speaking about the battle against invasive plant species that have overrun Quinnipiac Meadows and New Haven’s other five preserves. “You constantly have to be diligent in the process of removing invasives and replacing natives.”

On Saturday October 18, a dozen volunteers demonstrated this diligence, joining Cox and New Haven Land Trust staff to plant native trees and shrubs at the Quinnipiac Meadows Preserve.  Scheduled on United Way’s Day of Caring, the planting drew regulars like John, fellow preserve committee member Steve Wilcox and his daughter, as well as new faces, many of them from Yale University.

Armed with pickaxes, shovels and mulch, the group sowed 29 plants, including numerous serviceberry bushes and three species of oak trees. The work concluded with the construction of temporary fencing to protect the fledgling plants from deer.

“These workdays not only improve our ecosystem, but bring people together to learn about the preserve and better appreciate our community,” said Justin Elicker, executive director of the Land Trust. “There is no better way to meet someone than planting a tree together.”

Saturday’s planting was part of a much larger process of re-establishing native species in the preserve. In the fall of 2013, volunteers cleared the 1.2-acre area. Due to rapid re-growth of the invasives, the land was re-cleared last Wednesday.

Even after the native plants establish themselves, the battle to keep the invasives at bay will continue. It’s good guys vs. bad guys when it comes to plant species, Cox explained. Invasives are non-native plants that are considered disruptive to the environment and human economy. Some can even be harmful to human health.

As their name indicates, invasives are naturally aggressive. They grow rapidly under a wide variety of conditions and spread easily. Some can sprout from the smallest fragment of a root, making their eradication difficult. Invasives also leaf out and flower early, shading out the native species. A lack of natural controls on growth – such as diseases, insects or wildlife predators – also contributes to their proliferation.

When invasives invade, native plants suffer. According to the National Wildlife Federation, invasive plant species are one of the leading threats to native wildlife, putting approximately 42% of the threatened or endangered species at risk of extinction. Likewise, invasive species can greatly impact human economy as many commercial, agricultural, and recreational activities depend on healthy native ecosystems.

Understanding the serious implications of invasive, the New Haven Land Trust and its volunteers will continue to take ground in Quinnipiac Meadows – protecting the native plants as they get established and expanding their efforts to additional acres.

The invasive removal and tree-planting project was partially funded by the Natural Resources Conservation Service and the Quinnipiac River Fund.

Three rivers run through it. 

New Haven might not be known as a river city, but in fact it boasts three – the West River, Mill River and Quinnipiac River. A natural buffer for urban dwellers, they offer scenic beauty and access to nature walks and boating. They provide critical habitats for birds, fish and other wildlife. Yet despite their importance and allure, these rivers have suffered substantially from industrialization and urban development – impacts not caused by New Haven alone. The rivers flow through a dozen other towns and municipalities before entering New Haven, including Bethany and Woodbridge to the west and Meriden and Wallingford to the northeast.

In recent decades, strides have been made to stem the tide of pollution. Stricter regulations and mandatory permitting has helped to protect rivers to some degree. But are permits really doing enough?

Taking this question to heart, the Mill River Watershed Association is creating an important new tool to help people understand and use the permit process to protect New Haven’s rivers. Empowered by a $20,000 grant from the Quinnipiac River Fund, the Urban Rivers Permit Project will provide a comprehensive catalog of permits and permit-related regulations for the entire length of each river that flows through New Haven. A single source of permit information will empower river advocates to identify areas of concern and speak out for stronger regulation. The catalogue will include specific discharge and diversion permits, the dates when these permits come up for renewal, and contact information for the associated regulatory agencies. The report will also include summaries of each municipality’s current land use regulations related to waterfront development.

“I don’t think anybody has ever pulled it all together before,” said Mary Mushinsky who is leading the research. “And now I know why.” The report quickly grew to more than 40 pages and includes listings for at least 6 industrial discharges, 6 public sewage treatment plants, 477 stormwater permits, 11 diversion permits, as well as pre-existing diversions in 10 different streams flowing to these rivers.

Industries that discharge or divert water are the most obvious potential sources of pollution. Harder to pinpoint and monitor are the more widespread and debilitating affects of land use development. Polluted runoff from parking lots, roads and other impervious surfaces ultimately flows into the rivers, raising bacteria counts and causing violations of various other water quality standards. The Urban Rivers Permit Project hopes to encourage towns with fewer regulations to adopt best practices that can protect and improve rivers. Even a small regulatory change, such as a requirement that subdivisions leave vegetated buffers near waterways, can make a big difference.

The volunteer-led Mill River Watershed Association was formed in 1999 when the Lake Whitney Water Treatment Plant was first proposed. While they still champion the Mill River, their focus has broadened to include empowering effective advocacy for all of New Haven’s rivers – a fitting aim for the Association’s proposed new name: River Advocates of Greater New Haven.

Mill River Watershed Association’s president Cordalie Benoit

photos by Ian Christmann

Made infamous by the movie Erin Brokovich, the compound hexavalent chromium is a classified carcinogen, of controversial concern in drinking water as the film’s storyline reveals.  But what, if any, impact does it have on the ecosystems of non-drinking source waterways, such as the Quinnipiac River?

Prior to the 1990s, hexavalent chromium was widely used in industry. Today, it is mainly used in electro-plating, leather-tanning, wood preservation and the manufacture of plastic and dyes. Hexavalent chromium is most dangerous when chronically inhaled through dust, fumes or mist, a risk in “hot work” such as welding stainless steel or the use of certain spray paints and coatings. When it comes to hexavalent chromium’s impact in water, many questions still remain. Soluble compounds are a weaker carcinogen, however, according to a 2011 study of hexavalent chromium in drinking water, published by California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, “there is now sufficient evidence that hexavalent chromium is also carcinogenic by the oral route of exposure, based on studies in rats and mice conducted by the National Toxicology Program.”

Empowered by a grant from the Quinnipiac River Fund (a component fund of The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven), Yale University is helping shed further light on hexavalent chromium by measuring its concentration in storm water run-off in the Quinnipiac River watershed.

During heavy rains, water drains off large impervious surfaces, such as parking lots and roads, throughout Central Connecticut. Much of it eventually exits into the Quinnipiac River. In the past, combined sewer overflows brought all sewer water (both rain and sewage) to be treated in sewage plants. Unfortunately, with heavy rain conditions, the systems often overflowed, allowing raw sewage into rivers. New laws required sewer separation, bringing only raw sewage to treatment plants and draining rainwater directly to rivers and water bodies. Sewer separation solved the problem of sewage overflows, but created a new unique problem: heavy metal pollutants, such as hexavalent chromium, in surface run-off are being deposited, untreated, into the river.

Not only do large paved areas transport pollutants, but when it comes to hexavalent chromium, the concrete itself is a suspected source of the compound, making the highly developed Quinnipiac River watershed a perfect testing ground. Results of the testing are confirming concrete as a source, with higher concentrations of hexavalent chromium being found in watershed’s tributaries that are downstream of areas with more urban land cover, a relationship that is especially clear while it’s raining.

The Quinnipiac River Fund awarded Yale University a grant in March of 2013 to support the measurement of hexavalent chromium concentrations and chemical behavior in storm water within the watershed and in the River itself. The Fund has supported numerous research studies of chemical pollution in the River and its effects on species of flora and fauna that call the Quinnipiac home.