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NEW HAVEN REGISTER — The sheer amount of waste recently pulled from a forest surrounding a local stretch of the Quinnipiac River was enough to furnish a one-bedroom apartment.

A dirty, tan leather sofa (cushions included), a large metal bed frame (sans mattress), a waterlogged recliner, a microwave, patterned rugs and several mud-caked box fans were among the items removed from the floodplain on Valley Service Road – a hotspot for illegal dumping. Next to the household goods sat a pile of more than a dozen deflated tires.

To help reduce the amount of trash flowing into, and possibly contaminating, the Quinnipiac River, Courtney McGinnis, a Quinnipiac University biology professor, and groups of students from Hopkins School in New Haven staged a clean-up event two weeks ago. The event was part of a years-long effort to study pollution in the river – research that officials say is “critical” to understanding the river’s overall health and how it has changed over time.

“Many times people see trash like this and they think, ‘Not here, not in America. That must be … a third world country somewhere,'” said Priscilla Encarnacao, Hopkins’ director of research. “It’s like, no, that’s North Haven.”

McGinnis’s crusade against pollution in the Quinnipiac River began in 2015, when she took over efforts to study the body of water from a former Quinnipiac University chemistry professor. During that time, the health of the river, which runs from New Britain to the New Haven Harbor, has  steadily improved, she said.

Using a special instrument that can detect the presence of chemicals in the river, McGinnis and Encarnacao found only two classes of pollutants last year, hydrocarbons and bisphenol A, or BPA, compared to five to seven compounds when they first started sampling, she said. The decrease, she added, likely stemmed from regular monitoring of the river.

“Companies with permits to discharge are more careful when they know there are people monitoring the health of the river, ” said McGinnis, who recently got an $18,000 grant through the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven’s Quinnipiac River Fund to support her research.

Despite the improvements, McGinnis said, the Quinnipiac River still has a problem with hydrocarbons, which have showed up on water samples since 2017. Hydrocarbons are most commonly found in natural gas, crude oil and other energy sources, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

McGinnis said she believes the hydrocarbons and other harmful chemicals are building up over large areas and flowing into parts of the river, including in North Haven, as runoff during bouts of heavy rain – a process known as nonpoint source pollution. Last month’s clean-up, she said, was designed to target the trash washing into the river and releasing those substances after it degrades.

“We know where the contamination is coming from,” McGinnis said of the nonpoint source pollution traveling from the forest into the Quinnipiac River. “If we can remove those (contaminants), then it’s less likely for them to leech into the river.”

Most of the heavy-lifting had been completed by the time Gabriel Mena and his group of Hopkins classmates arrived in the afternoon to help clean the area around the Quinnipiac River in North Haven. Mena, a senior, said he mostly plucked empty packages of fruit snacks and Pop-Tarts wrappers from the forest, also stumbling on what he believed was a makeshift campground. The students received community service hours for participating.

“We don’t get a lot of opportunities like this to go out and help, so it’s very rewarding to be able to know that you’re helping your community,” said Mena, who will attend Yale University next year.

Garbage trucks hauled away the trash that the group had assembled along Valley Service Road. Some items, such as a jet ski, were too heavy and had to be left behind in the woods.

Maintenance for the land where the clean-up took place falls under the responsibility of state authorities, according to Encarnacao, the Hopkins director. But officials have been “out-manned by the dumpers,” allowing the waste to accumulate, she said.

McGinnis said she hopes removing the debris will result in a lower abundance of contaminants from plastic, textiles and other materials. Another clean-up is planned for the fall, according to McGinnis. The professor and a team of Quinnipiac University students will analyze water samples collected in Hamden, Meriden and Wallingford, in addition to North Haven.

McGinnis’ work over the past decade has helped contribute to the river’s turnaround. In 2015, after her group found a chemical in Wallingford that was giving the river a “red tint,” the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection fined a nearby steel manufacturer that had been “dumping something into the river that wasn’t permitted,” McGinnis said.

Once they are complete, the latest findings will offer a “snapshot” on the current state of the Quinnipiac River as McGinnis continues her quest to restore it.

“I hope that my data and research can support that we’re doing a better job on this river,” she said.