SoundBites
Hello Friends,
This year I continue to witness the power of collective action to safeguard the backyard we all love, Long Island Sound and the lands and rivers that lead to it. This relates to a critical goal of our strategic plan, to engage one million voices in protecting and restoring the Sound. By working together, we amplify our impact.
As we face record-breaking heat waves and extreme weather events, you and your neighbors are powering Save the Sound’s nature-based solutions to protect our coasts, habitats, and homes.
Thank you all! I’m pleased to share some recent highlights of the impacts you have:
Ecological Action: Rivers connect people and wildlife and should flow freely into the Sound. This is why we lead action through the Long Island Sound River Restoration Network, a coalition of Connecticut and New York organizations dedicated to repairing the health of our region’s rivers. The goal is to accelerate, prioritize, and streamline removal of river barriers, and to educate the public about how dams and culverts can harm rivers and their inhabitants. Save the Sound is currently in the planning stages for removing a dam from Blind Brook, in Rye, New York.
Last year was one of our largest coastal cleanup seasons to date, with more than 70 cleanups and hundreds of volunteers, who collected data that Save the Sound is using to influence laws that reduce pollution at the source.
Healthy Waters & Watersheds: We expanded our reach with our eighth year of coordinating the Unified Water Study, with 27 partners monitoring the health of 46 bays and harbors around the Sound. And with the Junior Sailors Association of Long Island Sound, we connected with more than 450 youth and educated them about the tactics we use to protect our waterways and what they can do to keep their backyards clean.
Amplifying Community Voices: Building coalitions and legal advocacy is our strength. Through the Urban Waters Initiative, we nurtured new connections with residents and organizations of Fair Haven, Connecticut, to amplify voices and leadership in environmental stewardship and justice within the lower Mill River watershed.
Through the CT Coalition for Climate Action, we helped lead environmental advocates, health experts, and labor and municipal representatives, to advocate for climate leadership in Connecticut. Connecticut must cut pollution and protect our future.
We are joining together and listening to communities about environmental concerns for Tweed Airport’s proposed expansion in East Haven, the vision for Six Lakes Park in Hamden, and the restoration of the Hutchinson and Bronx Rivers in New York.
Through our shared partnership with our members and donors, we will ensure the Sound remains a thriving habitat for wildlife, a recreational haven for families, and resilient for generations to come. Thank you for your commitment to safeguarding the Sound with us!
With gratitude,
Leah Lopez Schmalz President
Explore the Full Annual Report 2024 Online!
We deeply appreciate you, our dedicated supporters, for your generosity, advocacy, and hands-on involvement. YOU make a real difference.
Cleanups and Climate Action!
Marine debris—especially plastic—poses a grave risk to aquatic wildlife from the open water to the coast. In 2023, Save the Sound volunteers removed more than 7,500 pounds of trash from Connecticut’s beaches, parks, and rivers— significantly surpassing prior years’ totals. Plastics made up most of the debris, including over 11,645 cigarette butts, 8,113 food wrappers, 5,403 small plastic pieces, and 4,299 plastic bottle caps.
Our cleanups engage thousands of volunteers in preventing this harmful waste from entering Long Island Sound, improving both the environment and our resilience to climate change. Annalisa Paltauf, our ecological restoration volunteer coordinator, puts it best: “Every piece of trash we remove contributes to a healthier, more resilient ecosystem. Cleanups help reduce the stress on marine life and protect our waters from
the worsening effects of pollution.”
Our cleanup efforts wouldn’t be possible without the generous contributions of our sponsors. We’re grateful to Subaru New England, Barrett Outdoor Communications, FactSet Charitable Foundation, and Beiersdorf, each contributing $10,000, and HMTX, PKF O’Connor Davies, Neuberger Berman, and Arvinas, each providing $5,000. Their support allowed us to expand our efforts and engage more volunteers across the state.
We invite volunteers of all ages to join our cleanups, happening every August through October (savethesound.org/ cleanups). Together, we can protect Connecticut and New York’s coastline and ensure a healthier future for our communities and the Long Island Sound ecosystem.
Community Visioning in the Heart of Hamden
Progress was made this year in the effort to transform a contaminated 102.5-acre forest in the center of Hamden, Connecticut, into Six Lakes Park. This spring, Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and Olin, the corporation that owns the property, released results from the latest round of contamination testing. With Save the Sound’s support, the Six Lakes Park Coalition grew its grassroots advocacy in the neighborhood, held a series of community meetings, and kickstarted a community visioning process to ensure that the future of Six Lakes best serves the needs of its neighbors. Visions of an oasis of connection, education, and peace in a natural space in the center of a densely populated BIPOC neighborhood pushed our efforts forward. Support is growing, and at the heart of that support is the voice of the community.
Landing at Tweed New Haven airport, travelers can look out the airplane window and straight into someone’s living room. Despite its precarious location in a residential community and surrounded by wetlands, Tweed wants to expand. This year Save the Sound filed a federal court appeal of the FAA’s finding of no significant impact to ensure that all environmental effects are thoroughly vetted and addressed. We’re also continuing to engage with community members to support grassroots advocacy.
Continuing the Fight for Plum Island
We continue coordinating the campaign with Preserve Plum Island Coalition to protect the unique ecological, historical, and cultural heritage of Plum Island. With your help, we’re supporting a congressional bill that would make Plum Island a national monument, placing this important land preservation work
in the realm of federal advocacy. We’re making sure Plum Island receives the necessary attention it deserves on Capitol Hill.
In March, Long Island Natural Areas Manager Louise Harrison testified on the bill before Congress. Louise traveled to D.C. again in October and met
with U.S. representatives and senators to discuss Plum Island preservation. She continues advocacy in district offices and in online meetings with key legislative staffers and stays in touch with key federal agencies. We hope this legislation moves out of committee and receives full congressional approval.
Please help in getting the word out to friends and family in states across the U.S.: Ask them to tell their representatives that they too want to see this shared national treasure permanently protected. Visit www.preserveplumisland. org to send a message today.
New Plan, Same Risks for Mattituck Inlet
Two big steps occurred this year in our partnership with Save Mattituck Inlet and numerous other Long Island environmental organizations working to prevent Strong’s Yacht Center’s plan to excavate a 53-foot hill for building a pair of giant storage buildings on Mattituck Creek:
1) The Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) found the project unsupportable and 2) The Suffolk County Planning Commission recommended project denial.
The Town of Southold Planning Board was poised to then deny the project’s application;
unexpectedly, however, the developer submitted a scaled-down plan. It still poses serious erosion, endangered species losses, and water quality risks. A Supplemental EIS likely will be required. We continue advising the community as it navigates environmental impact analysis and organizes opposition.
Save the Sound staff traveled to Washington, D.C., to advocate for the passage of the Long Island Sound Restoration and Stewardship Reauthorization Act. We informed our representatives, including Senator Richard Blumenthal (center), about the importance of this legislation in continuing to fund essential projects such as dam removals, living shoreline restoration, water quality monitoring, and land conservation. We are proud to help ensure that our beloved Long Island Sound receives national attention for the benefit of its diverse communities.
Building Momentum for a Greener Future
The CT Coalition for Climate Action is uniting key stakeholders across the state to push forward the climate policies we need. Save the Sound is coordinating a group of organizations, including youth, health professionals, faithbased organizations, and environmental nonprofits, working to amplify voices for action against climate change. We use the power of grassroots advocacy to fight for smart climate solutions like solar power, heat pumps, offshore wind, and electric vehicles.
This year, we organized a series of advocacy days at the Capitol and hosted a youth climate poster contest, inspiring climate education for middle and high schoolers.
Photo credit (clockwise from top left):
10,000 Hawks, Robert Lorenz, Francine Gordon, Save Mattituck Inlet.
Restoring Marshes
Plans for living shoreline restoration work are underway for the Big Rock Wetland Restoration Project at Douglas Manor in Queens, New York, and Chittenden Park in Guilford, Connecticut.
Save the Sound and the Douglas Manor Environmental Association are creating a living shoreline that will restore oyster habitat, combat shoreline erosion, improve water quality, and mitigate coastal flooding. This year, we worked to finalize designs and establish baseline data about preconstruction biodiversity through wildlife surveys in collaboration with our
partners, New York City Audubon and Billion Oyster Project.
The salt marsh at Chittenden Park, an important habitat for many species, including the declining Saltmarsh Sparrow, has been subject to significant erosion over the last century. This year, Save the Sound and our engineering consultant began site studies and preliminary designs for a living shoreline, which includes a series of offshore rock sills that will enhance marine habitat while reducing wave energy and slowing down the loss of marsh.
Saltmarsh Sparrows, with their orange-buff and rusty brown plumage, blend into the tidal marshes along the Atlantic coast. Their nests are vulnerable to high tides, making them increasingly threatened by rising sea levels.
Through the Lobster Trap Retrieval and Assessment Partnership, Save the Sound, the Maritime Aquarium, and Project Oceanology have recovered more than 2,000 traps in Long Island Sound. Lost or abandoned traps continue to attract and kill aquatic animals—but not this 28-inch Atlantic cod that our fish biologist, Jon Vander Werff, saved from a recovered pot and released in January. The lobster pot where this fish was found had been in the water since 2001.
A Big Win for Suffolk County Voters on Clean Water Future
This November, Suffolk County voters took a decisive step for clean water. With the passage of Proposition 2, they created a sustainable funding source to expand sewer access and replace 380,000 outdated septic systems and cesspools—an essential move to address nitrogen pollution impacting local waters.
To help get Prop 2 on the ballot, Save the Sound collaborated with coalition partners and legislators to ensure the Suffolk County Water Quality Restoration Act passed the New York State legislature, was signed by Governor Kathy Hochul,
gained approval from the Suffolk County legislature, and received County Executive Ed Romaine’s signature this summer.
“This is a turning point for clean water,” says David Ansel, our vice president of water protection. “We applaud the voters for delivering a powerful, unambiguous message: it’s time to protect drinking water, groundwater, our bays and harbors, and Long Island Sound. It’s also time to upgrade the county’s inadequate wastewater infrastructure and reduce the nitrogen pollution that has threatened clean water for far too long.”
Photo credit (above): Jack Reynolds
Unified Water Study Continues to Grow
Save the Sound launched the Unified Water Study (UWS) in 2017 with a clear goal: to standardize the protocols, procedures, and equipment used to collect water quality data in bays and harbors around Long Island Sound. Now in its eighth season, the UWS has grown to 27 monitoring groups (including our
own crew) measuring the ecological health of 46 bays and harbors. Its reach extended this season to include the Saugatuck River in Westport and West Harbor on Fishers Island, 30 miles northeast of Orient Point.
UWS data is used to shape the science-driven Bay
Grades we release every two years in our biennial Long Island Sound Report Card. The 2024 Report Card will be published this October and will feature Bay Grades based on data collected during the 2023 season. These grades can inform community efforts to protect and restore local waterways.
Elena Colón (right), our laboratory manager, working with our director of water quality, Peter Linderoth, and laboratory technician, Lindsey Potts, played a pivotal role in achieving certification for our Larchmont-based John and Daria Barry Foundation Water Quality Lab through the New York Environmental Laboratory Approval Program (ELAP) in August. This major accomplishment enables us to submit data for New York to use in Clean Water Act waterbody assessments, helping to identify water pollution issues.
