Great News! A National Estuarine Research Reserve for Southeastern CT

THIS MAP SHOWS THE INITIAL POTENTIAL SITE INVENTORY

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Office for Coastal Management is proposing to designate a Connecticut National Estuarine Research Reserve (CT NERR) for a large segment of southeast Connecticut’s coast, including both land and water.  Connecticut is the only state on the eastern seaboard that does not have a national reserve. GCA strongly supports the creation of a NERR on the Connecticut coast.  It will bring enormous benefits to the environment in the form of additional research and research funds to study the issues related to our coast as well as establish an important framework to coordinate the related existing research, strengthen education about these important ecological areas, and share information on issues related to the reserve area.

What is an estuary? An estuary is an ecological term for a bay or a partially enclosed area where a river meets the sea and fresh and saltwater mix, often creating considerable diversity of species. Long Island Sound is an estuary. Estuaries often include marsh areas, which are important sponges for reducing the impact of storms. In short, healthy estuaries are critical for protecting species diversity and mitigating the impacts of climate change and sea level rise.

The proposal: The CT NERR boundaries would run from Barn Island to just west of the Connecticut River. Of the total 52,160 acres, 1,955 are landward, and much of that is in Groton.  Bluff Point State Park and Coastal Reserve, Haley Farm State Park, Pine Island Archeological Preserve, and UCONN Avery Point are all focal points of the proposed Reserve.  The proposed seaward areas comprise all Groton’s estuaries including Bakers Cove, Birch Plain Creek, Poquonnock River estuary, Mumford Cove and Palmer Cove.

The lead agency managing the reserve will be UCONN with a strong partner in the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environment (DEEP). 

For more in-depth information on the CT NERR, click here and then go to pages 13-20 to read the Executive Summary.

Update on the Mystic Education Center Redevelopment Plan

Respler Homes redevelopment concept presented Nov. 7, 2019

June 26, 2021 UPDATE

The State of Connecticut has decided not to renew the lease of Respler Homes on 48 acres of the Mystic Oral School property. Nevertheless, developer Jeff Respler remains committed to fulfilling the requirements for the sale, but noted that the new zoning limitations would require “a totally different vision.”

Groton’s Planning and Zoning Commission decided at a special meeting on June 14 that zoning changes to the former Mystic Education Center property would not include a floating zone and would instead be limited to small or moderate density development consistent with the neighborhood and the town’s Plan of Conservation and Development. The decision essentially puts a halt to a controversial proposal to build a sprawling 931-unit complex on the site at 240 Oral School Road using a floating zone. Read more about the P&Z Commission decision.

Background Story

After years of GCA watchdogging to save the 66+ acres of DEEP forest land from development (more than half the Oral School property), the Mystic Education Center redevelopment plan was finally announced by Groton’s Economic and Community Development Manager, Paige Bronk, on Nov. 7th, 2019. The chosen developer, Respler Homes, said, "We want to keep this as green as possible." But by January 2021, Respler’s project looked a lot less green. Read Jim Furlong’s (GCA board member) Op-ed article in The Day published March 14, 2021.

The revised project covers 48 acres of “surplus” state land and at least 16 acres of nearby land acquired privately by Respler Homes. The developer’s original forecast for the size of his project was about 750 units, but he ended 2020 with a target of 931.

This sharp expansion caused one P&Z member at a meeting last month to quip that the panel might assemble one day and find the number had risen to 1,100.  

The Respler project has aroused questions about its size and density. “Behemoth” and “Co-op City” were two terms heard at the meeting. Now named “Mystic River Bluffs,” it poses several challenges to the P&Z, which merged the then-separate Planning and Zoning commissions in 2019. The merger took place over objections of conservationists, who worried that zoning could get short shrift from overburdened commissioners. At present, there are five full commission members, of whom only one was a Zoning holdover.

The project is also complex and based on concepts unknown or at least unusual for Groton. It involves a “floating zone,” giving developers more leeway than conventional zoning allows. Commission members are wondering what limits if any will apply to Respler Homes’ ultimate size and whether adequate alternatives have been considered for redevelopment. Financing for the project will be provided partly by Tax Increment Financing (TIF), which involves public funds. Floating zones are controversial because it means citizens can no longer rely on the predictability of the zoning map and their use tends to favor private development over the public interest.

Suggestions for alternative uses of the scenic land include a public park. A number of residents have called for refurbishing an existing theater in the land’s central Pratt building for musical and theatrical purposes.

The prospect of an influx of 2,000 more residents has raised alarm about traffic, noise, light pollution, blasting damage, and sudden urbanization of a semi-rural area that once was home to a state school for the deaf. No firm answers exist about further expansion. 

Read our Jan. 21 letter to the Planning & Zoning Commission in response to Respler’s development update presented to the Town on January 20, 2021.

Trees are Critically Important to Groton's Wellbeing

“As the biggest plants on the planet, trees give us oxygen, store carbon, stabilize the soil and give life to the world's wildlife. They also provide us with the materials for tools and shelter.” To read more about the importance of trees to our health, the environment, and more, click HERE.

GCA is a strong advocate for trees, unfragmented forests, and the many ecosystem benefits trees provide including carbon sequestration. The last 30 years of development have taken a toll on the number of Groton’s trees, and the remaining fragmented forests are in poor condition. A range of Connecticut tree species is dying from a combination of afflictions, in part due to climate change. Two years of drought weakened our trees, leaving them vulnerable to pests and diseases, and multiple major storms in recent years inflicted more damage on our woodlands. 

Discouraging suburban sprawl’s clear-cutting and encouraging the preservation of old and intact forests based on sequestration science should be key to a sustainable Groton. It makes financial sense since trees are the only cost-efficient way to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. A peer-reviewed article titled “Intact Forests in the United States: Proforestation Mitigates Climate Change and Serves the Greatest Good” published in June 2019 in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, states that “newly planted forests require many decades to a century before they sequester carbon dioxide in substantial quantities.”  

We are pleased that the current town council is promoting redevelopment because we are running out of time for development and forestry as usual.

Progress on Single-Use Plastics

Window cling showing support for the plastics reduction ordinance

The Town of Groton joined over 20 other Connecticut towns on January 7, 2020, when the Town Council passed a ban on single-use plastic bags at check-out. Groton’s ban also includes a ban on plastic straws and polystyrene (Styrofoam) cups, trays and clam shells.   The Representative Town Meeting then voted overwhelmingly to support the ban in February.  The ban was scheduled to go into effect July 7th, 2020 but due to hardship associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, the town opted not to enforce the ban until October 5.  

This ordinance puts Groton in the vanguard of single-use plastics reduction in the state of CT.

There is still lots of work to do educating the public and Groton businesses on the ordinance. Spot-checking around town reveals that there is good compliance but also the need to educate some restaurants and carry-out establishments.

PLASTIC REDUCTION SUPPORTER CLINGS

To encourage and celebrate compliance, GCA partnered with the Groton Conservation Commission, The Greater Mystic Chamber of Commerce and the Town of Groton to develop a window “cling” that stores can display in their front windows to let the public know they support and comply with our plastics reduction ordinance. This beautiful cling was designed by local artist Lisa Hill. Unfortunately, just as we were rolling out the cling campaign, COVID 19 hit town, and we have had to pull back until the COVID plague has passed. A few businesses are already displaying the cling and supporting our mission. Lets do the same for them!  

NIPS Glinting in gutters and lurking in landscapes, NIPS bottles are a familiar eyesore. The tiny liquor bottles are one of the biggest litter problems that remain in the Town of Groton and momentum is gathering at the state level to ban NIPS altogether. To find out where Groton residents stand on the issue, the Conservation Commission conducted a survey of local residents and business owners and found that of 384 respondents, 81% feel NIPS are a litter problem and 55% perceive them as a major problem. Similarly, about 70% of respondents feel that they should be eliminated. Currently at the state level, four bills have been submitted to the Committee on Environment to try and mitigate the problem: Bill 465 expands bottle bill to apply to NIPs bottles and sports drinks; Bill 280 (sponsored by Senator Heather Somers) provides 25-cent redemption fee on NIPS; Bill 6641 eliminates the sale of NIPS bottles in Connecticut; Bill 5811 expands the bottle bill to include NIPS and provides for the creation of redemption centers. The Conservation Commission has recommended that the Town Council support these bills, and GCA concurs.

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May 29, 2021 UPDATE

HB 6502 will ban polystyrene takeout products statewide. The restaurant industry is claiming this will be a great hardship for restaurants recovering from the pandemic, but the bill does not go into effect until July 1, 2023. We will be well recovered by then. Groton's ban on polystyrene take-out containers has worked very well. Polystyrene litters our streets and parks, is swallowed by birds and fish and never fully breaks down. Nor is there a recycling system in Connecticut for it. Please let the legislative leaders know how successful and unproblematic the polystyrene ban has been in Groton. You can share this very powerful op-ed from the Connecticut Mirror too. Read more here.

HB 1037 will reform our state bottle recycling system to include juice, tea and other beverage bottles in our deposit program and increase the deposit from five to ten cents, critical for recycling programs to stay viable. The bill also puts a ten-cent deposit on nips, which would be a huge help in cleaning up these little pieces of trash all over our communities. The beverage industry is proposing to delay this increase until other states act and to tax nips instead of putting on a deposit, which would do nothing to discourage throwing them out the window. The bill should be passed as it came out of committee.

NO to the Killingly Fossil-Fuel Plant and YES to Clean Energy in 2019

GCA environmental advocates said NO to the Killingly fossil-fuel plant and YES to clean energy in 2019

Plans for the Killingly Energy Center (KEC) in northeast CT, an unneeded and toxic 650-MW gas power plant, have progressed over the past year despite mounting opposition by environmental advocates. 

Two permit applications have gone forward: a KEC water discharge permit, approved by DEEP in early January, 2021; and an Eversource permit for a gas pipeline from Pomfret to Killingly approved by DEEP in  December, 2020. Environmentalists see this pipeline as a threat to local habitat and endangered species. A final DEEP determination is pending. Killingly area opponents have brought a lawsuit related to the plant’s approval by the CT Siting Council. The State Supreme Court has yet to render a decision in this case, but a finding against KEC is not anticipated.

Meanwhile, concerted opposition to KEC is reflected in an ongoing stream of op-eds (read GCA’s Op-Ed here) and letters to the editor; hundreds of letters and calls to Governor Lamont and DEEP Commissioner Katie Dykes; and numerous activist events including an on-line December press event sponsored by  multiple organizations, including Citizens’ Campaign for the Environment, Sierra Club CT, the CT League of Conservation Voters, Clean Water Action, 350.org, and the youth organization, Sunrise.

Despite this mounting pressure, both Governor Lamont and Commissioner Dykes have not put the brakes on KEC. Dykes puts the onus of responsibility for KEC on ISO-New England, the manager of our regional electric power grid, which in 2019 awarded KEC a spot in its “power auction.”  

Regardless of the fact that the build-out of KEC would thwart his goal of a 100% carbon-free power by 2040,  Governor Lamont has not demonstrated the political will to halt Killingly.  As recently as last week, the Governor repeated that he doesn’t want to build KEC, but in a February 3rd interview on CT Public Radio’s Where We Live, he said that at this point there might not be a lot he can do to stop the plant.

KEC opponents continue to apply concerted pressure, and advocates are shining a light on the DEEP-approved plan to replace a 375-MW gas plant in Middletown with a gas-powered “upgrade” rather than carbon-free technology. Hope is now pinned on a bill introduced in the CT legislature by Sen. Christine Cohen that would place a moratorium on all new fossil-fuel power plants in the state.

Fighting Climate Change

Local: The Groton Resilience and Sustainability Task Force

February 2021 The Task Force has developed and presented to the Town Council on specific action recommendations the Town should take to become more resilient to the effects of climate change. These include how to fulfill the state’s mandate to plan for 20 inches of sea-level rise by 2050 and how Groton can meet the state mandate to have 40% of electrical energy generated from renewable sources by 2040. 

The Task Force notes that the Town has already made substantial progress during the last 15 years, including: installing energy-efficient lighting in many town schools  and town buildings; increasing use of energy efficient hybrid automobiles; supporting recycling activities; including climate, resilience and sustainability concepts in various community documents, i.e. the Plan of Conservation and Development; and revising Town zoning regulations to better reflect climate, resilience and sustainability concerns.

This, of course, is just the start of what needs to be done. First, GCA and the Task Force are strongly recommending that the Town hire a full-time experienced director to manage Groton’s evolution into an energy-efficient town to mitigate the impacts of climate change while making the community more resilient. Much more can be done to promote solar installation on the new schools being proposed and built. We need vehicle-fleet conversion to electric, and revised zoning in our coastal and flood-prone areas. Rising temperatures that increase tick populations and help spread infectious disease are a threat to public health and need to be addressed. Downtown Mystic needs a serious evaluation of how to cope with a 20” sea-level rise by 2050. (Click here for a 2012 NYTimes video showing the convergence of Hurricane Sandy’s storm surge + a full moon tide in Mystic.) These are issues the Task Force will be assisting the Town in addressing over the next year.

State: Environmental Legislation Update and the Governor’s Council on Climate Change

As usual, the legislature convened in early January for what is known as the “long session” during which legislators have more ability to introduce new legislation. However, given COVID-19 it is likely to be an anything-but-usual session and one that is more focused on a few big issues including addressing the state’s current solid waste system’s serious shortcomings.

GCA will monitor the progress of several bills legislators and the Governor have proposed that would expand renewable generation, efficiency, and benefit the town and its residents. In somewhat of a surprise, the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) has proposed a financial construct for solar projects that enables a continuation of the existing net metering system that GCA supports as well as a new tariff construct that the utilities   favor. See Jan Spiegel’s article in the CT Mirror.

Members of GCA have continued to follow the work of the Governor’s Council on Climate Change (GC3) as its subject matter working groups have regularly met through Zoom. In January of 2021, the Council issued a Phase 1 Report: Near-Term Actions that highlights near term (2021-2) strategies to mitigate climate change impacts and, to a lesser degree, actions to make Connecticut more resilient in the face of them. Those recommendations begin on page 31 in the report titled: Taking Action on Climate Change and Building a More Resilient Connecticut for All.

Specifically the Governor has proposed three bills that address climate and energy issues:

An Act Concerning Transportation-Related Carbon Emissions;  An Act Concerning Climate Change Adaptation;  An Act Concerning Climate Change Mitigation and Home Energy Affordability

Energy  Legislation that GCA was monitoring died when the legislature adjourned due to COVID 19. To some extent the Value of Distributed Generation study is continuing at the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (DOCKET NO. 19-06-29) and although there have been no meetings since early March, a motion by advocates to ensure transparency by forbidding DEEP and PURA from engaging in ex parte communications succeeded.

On the national level, the New England Ratepayers Association (NERA) has petitioned the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to set national standards for how owners of distributed generation like solar and wind are compensated thereby preempting existing state net metering provisions in 41 states, including those in Connecticut that are under review in the PURA docket referred to above. Click here for more information.

Planning and Zoning Commission: October 22, 2019

P&Z Schedules Meeting On Rainfall Standards Commissioners discussed the use of 25-year rainfall standards for dealing with runoff from the new middle school adjacent to the Fitch High School. Sue Sutherland, chairperson of the Zoning Commission before it merged into Planning & Zoning, raised the question of whether that benchmark is appropriate in light of climate change. She noted that Fort Hill Brook, which will accept stormwater flows, is a swiftly moving stream that has flooded in the past. Ms. Sutherland, formerly Zoning Commission Chair, is now an alternate member of the new commission.
The 25-year benchmark will remain in place for the middle school because it is the town standard. However, Assistant Director of Planning, Deb Jones, told the commission that she would schedule a meeting to discuss the issue. She noted that increasing the standard to 100 years would involve much more extensive cutting of trees. No date was set immediately.

GCA Takes on Roadside Litter

GCA is in the early stages of a campaign to reduce roadside litter in Groton. We’ve had preliminary talks with members of the Town Council, Department of Public Works, Conservation Commission and police force. Progress is not yet visible to the public, but seeds have been planted. 

We believe a good start toward keeping roadways cleaner would be to post a limited number of no-littering signs on town and state roads. Groton, to our knowledge, has none at present, even though littering is a finable offense under state law.

The message on signs is yet to be determined. We’ve had a number of suggested candidates, most of them from the town Department of Public Works, under Director Gary Schneider. They vary in tone from stern to philosophical to funny. The list below shows only the slogan, not the caution against littering that would accompany it.

The suggestions so far:  Be part of the solution, not the pollution; Feed the can, man; Slam dunk the junk; You think we like picking up after you? (with a photo of a mom and dad); I hate that empty feeling inside (seen on a trash receptacle); Put trash in its place; Join the green side (with an image of Darth Vader);  If you litter, the future will be bitter; Reuse, Reduce, Recycle; Fill me up buttercup (seen on another trash receptacle)

Reader, if you have a message of your own, please share it with us at groconadv2017@gmail.com

Protecting Groton's Trees and Forests

Groton New London Airport, right, Bluff Point left. Photo by Brian Best.

Back in 2015-16, the Connecticut Airport Authority (CAA) recommended that Bluff Point's tallest trees be removed to accommodate airplanes landing at Groton-New London Airport. In response, local and state environmental advocacy groups (including a few of us pre-GCA advocates) proposed that a far more thorough environmental impact study be concluded to lessen the project's impact on the environment given CAA plans to remove 40 acres of trees in various locations at the park. Click here for the full back story in the Day. 

The final Environmental Assessment was posted on the CAA study website in early March 2018. The final EA allows the project to proceed to the stage where specific plans and required permits can be considered. GCA is in contact with the CT Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, the owner of Bluff Point, and is urging them to minimize environmental damage by putting in place protective measures during the permitting process.

GCA continues to keep an eye on this project. There has been no action on the CAA tree-cutting plan for years now.

Energy

GCA is monitoring legislative action on policies supporting the deployment of renewable energy resources. House Bill 7251, AN ACT CONCERNING LONG-TERM CONTRACTS FOR CERTAIN CLASS I GENERATION PROJECTS AND THE RESIDENTIAL SOLAR INVESTMENT PROGRAM AND REQUIRING A STUDY OF THE VALUE OF SOLAR, unanimously passed the Energy & Technology Committee and awaits action by the full General Assembly before it adjourns June 5th.

The bill would preserve net metering for those generating electricity from Class I renewable resources and increase the megawatt amount of solar for which the Green Bank may provide financial incentives through its Residential Solar Investment Program (RSIP).