SoundBites Winter 2025

SoundBites ACTION FOR OUR REGION’S ENVIRONMENT

IN THIS ISSUE • • • •

Vision for Hamden Park Our Women in Science Advocacy in Albany Climate & Resilience

Lighthouse Point Park in New Haven, Connecticut.

Latest with Leah

Advocating for Change in 2025 2025 is a year for environmental action at the state and local levels. Save the Sound’s bold legislative agenda takes on our region’s most urgent environmental challenges with a focus on resilience, innovation, and justice. We are addressing issues that directly impact the health of our communities and ecosystems.

In Connecticut, priorities include expanding heat pump incentives, upgrading sewage and stormwater systems, reducing toxic pesticides, strengthening Environmental Justice protections, and defending state laws that protect lands from harmful development. These efforts protect public health, cut emissions, and enhance climate resilience. Learn more at savethesound.org/ctagenda.

Your support makes all of this possible. Every action you take— whether it’s making a donation, signing a petition, volunteering, or telling friends and family about our mission—creates meaningful momentum. You’re not just helping protect the environment; you’re building a stronger, more connected region where people and nature thrive side by side.

If you ever need more information or want to get involved further, know that we’re here.

In New York, we’re advocating for securing $600 million for the Clean Water Infrastructure Act, banning horseshoe crab harvesting, reducing PFAS and plastic waste, and advancing climate adaptation policies like the NY HEAT Act and Rain Ready NY Act. Learn more at savethesound.org/nyagenda.

The health of Long Island Sound remains central to our work. As nitrogen pollution, outdated infrastructure, and climate-driven flooding threaten this vital ecosystem, we’re urging both states to prioritize clean water funding, enhance climate resilience, and strengthen environmental protections.

Leah Lopez Schmalz President

Sue McDonald’s Vision for Hamden Park How a committed volunteer is advocating for Six Lakes Like many Hamden residents, Sue McDonald didn’t know there was an undeveloped 102-acre stretch of forested land sitting vacant in the most urbanized part of town. But once she learned about the injustice of such a rich natural resource being inaccessible to its own neighborhood, she joined the Six Lakes Park Coalition, which is fighting to get the parcel cleaned up and turned into public open space. What’s more, she and her husband sold their home of 20 years across town to move closer to the site.

Sue brings a unique mix of skills and dedication to the project. With a career in nonprofit financial management, including a decade as finance director at Yale Law School, her sharp attention to detail enables her to easily read, digest, and synthesize decades of technical documents about pollution, consent decrees, and legal cases. At the same time, her big-picture perspective keeps the steering committee focused on its goals.

As State Senator Martin Looney describes it, Six Lakes is “a gem that needs to be polished.”

Now, with owner Olin Corporation testing for contamination ahead of a cleanup, Sue is optimistic about the park’s future. She finds inspiration daily from her new view of Six Lakes: “It reminds me to keep working so access to the natural world isn’t unequally distributed.”

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Published February 2025 by Save the Sound. All rights reserved.

Articles in this newsletter may be reprinted with permission • ajames@savethesound.org Contributors: Killian Duborg, Josh Garskof, Martin Hain, Amanda James, Laura McMillan, David Seigerman, Lindsay Skedgell, and Anne Urkawich.

Photo Credit: Doug Reynolds

Charting a Course Inspiring sustainability through sailing Last summer, Save the Sound worked closely with New York and Connecticut yacht clubs to create a program combining environmental education with sailing. More than 400 young sailors throughout the Sound region learned about water quality, sustainability practices, and how their choices can help preserve the Sound for generations to come.

Many left the program with a new perspective—realizing that the same wind and water they rely on for sailing are also vulnerable to pollution and need protecting.

This effort grew from Save the Sound’s commitment to inspiring environmental stewardship among people who love the Sound. We will continue to expand this collaboration with the Junior Sailing Association, whose 45 clubs serve thousands of youth.

As this initiative grows, we invite more yacht clubs to connect with us. If your club would like to host a presentation on water quality or explore other ways to get involved, please email us at development@savethesound.org. Let’s work together to make an even bigger impact this year.

Save the Sound is seeking an Environmental Studies college student for a summer 2025 internship supporting our sailing and environmental education initiative.

Help engage young sailors in protecting Long Island Sound.

Email info@savethesound.org to apply or learn more.

Act Now: Sign the Climate Action Petition for Connecticut!

Sign and share the ongoing Climate Action Petition to promote the safety and health of all communities in Connecticut, especially those most vulnerable, by addressing the harmful effects of climate change. The Connecticut Coalition for Climate Action is working to achieve 10,000 signatures this year!

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Celebrating Save the Sound’s Women in Science This International Women and Girls in Science Day, we honor our experts shaping the future of environmental science Louise Harrison looked out the window of her father’s already vintage Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight as they sat immobilized in construction traffic on the drive from Queens to a country getaway up in Putnam County. Only five or six years old at the time, Louise was struck by the sight of mountains being demolished around her. Bulldozers sent trees tumbling down the slopes as they cleared a path to build Interstate 684, the New York State Thruway.

Her father fretted about the Olds overheating. Louise worried about the animals who called that hillside home.

Louise soon found herself teaching her young friends about the tulips and the azalea bushes bursting in the yards of Forest Hills—a perfectly named launchpad for a life dedicated to understanding and protecting the natural world. After studying field biology and ecology, she now applies her scientific expertise to conservation efforts across Long Island Sound.

Today, she is Save the Sound’s Long Island Project Manager & Senior Science Advisor and one of the many female scientists recognized on International Women and Girls in Science Day. Louise continues to lead walks, connecting people to nature and inspiring them to protect it.

Louise has spent years working on the ongoing effort to preserve Plum Island as a national monument. She is active in land protection across the North Shore—and as an advisor on our wetlands restoration project in Queens. She also continues her fight to protect forests and wetlands, down to the ephemeral vernal pools that so many species of amphibians call home—all driven by the curiosity first fostered by her parents and public school science teachers.

“We are all born naturalists—until someone drives it out of us,” she says. “Every kid wants to touch an ant or pick up a worm, do slimy things, and get dirty. Allowing kids to be curious and letting them engage with the natural world makes such a difference.”

“My father encouraged my interest in nature from the beginning, always taking me for long walks in the woods and letting me catch anything that I could as long as I promised to let it go after an hour. When I asked what was going to happen to the animals in the habitat getting flattened outside the car window, my father decided not to spare me,” Louise remembers. “He said they were going to die, that there was no place for them to go. It broke my heart. I felt at that moment I had to do something, and that has been my North Star for the rest of my life.”

Photo Credit: Thomas Halaczinsky

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Photo Credit: NVCOG

Megan Lung

Lindsey Potts

Laura Wildman

New York Ecological Restoration Project Manager

Laboratory Technician

Vice President for Ecological Action

Megan came to Save the Sound from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Hudson River Estuary Program, where she focused on river restoration.

Before getting her Master in Earth and Planetary Science from McGill University in Montreal, Lindsey worked as a research technician at the University of Connecticut, primarily on projects related to nitrogen in the Atlantic Ocean. At Save the Sound, she prepares and analyzes water quality samples that provide important information about the health of bays and harbors around Long Island Sound.

Laura, the first woman honored with the International Fish Passage Conference’s Distinguished Career Award, has over three decades of experience in engineering, river science, habitat construction, outreach, and advocacy on hundreds of restoration projects. As head of Save the Sound’s Ecological Restoration Program, she is driving our work and impact forward.

Cheekily nicknamed the “Queen of the Culverts,” Megan refined the program’s approach to man-made barrier removal.

“

Science is a part of everything I do at Save the Sound.

From wading in streams and conducting measurements, to writing reports and presenting on my projects, it’s all driven by science. Science isn’t just men in a clean laboratory, it’s also observing the natural world— and that can be quite messy!”

“

My favorite part, honestly, is the data. I love to see the pieces of the puzzle come together, and it’s fulfilling to know my work produces tangible information that grows our understanding of the world around us.”

“

I contemplated leaving engineering shortly after graduating college. However, once I found an amazing mentor and focused on ecological engineering, I found my passion. Don’t give up, network continually, find good mentors, and seek the aspects of the field that interest you most. If you love what you do, you will always succeed.”

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Advocacy in Action in Albany Speaking up for the environment (and sneaking some snacks)

At a lobby day, a group of people come together to meet with elected officials about a specific issue, which for Save the Sound, could be anything from maximizing investment in clean water to minimizing plastic pollution. In New York, it starts with gathering at the Legislative Office Building in Albany, where you can meet your fellow activists and load up on coffee before being divided into groups to meet with individual legislators. After a few hours, you’ll have made sure your issue is on your representatives’ radar, and you’ll have gotten your steps in for the day.

New York Policy Coordinator Ella McGrail has seen firsthand what a difference it makes when constituents make the trek up to Albany to discuss an issue they care about. Sure, the facts and figures provided by professional advocates are important, but what really gets a legislator’s attention are the stories their own constituents share about how pollution, extreme weather, and

other environmental issues impact their lives and communities.

In the first few weeks of New York’s 2025 legislative session, Save the Sound participated in multiple lobby days focused on climate justice, plastic pollution, toxic PFAS, and the Environmental Protection Fund. In February, we gathered to call for more clean water funding in the state budget, and in April we will cohost the Earth Day Advocacy Day, when New Yorkers ask their representatives to take bold action to fight climate change and protect the environment. Stay tuned for more lobby day opportunities throughout the session.

If you’re interested in trying out this form of advocacy (which always comes with free snacks, though quality varies), reach out to Ella McGrail at emcgrail@savethesound. org.

Middle: New York Policy Coordinator Ella McGrail (right) with fellow advocates in the New York State Legislative Office Building lobbying for climate resiliency.

Bottom: Advocates with their homemade signs on the Million Dollar Staircase in the New York State Capitol last spring, calling for policy to reduce plastic packaging waste.

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Introducing the Doherty Climate and Resilience Institute A new hub for science, policy, and action Climate change threatens so much of what we hold dear in this region. Last summer, torrential rain flooded parts of southwestern Connecticut, Long Island, and New York City, destroying homes and fracturing vital transportation infrastructure; other recent weather events have included record-setting heat waves, tornadoes, and hailstorms. The new presidential administration has rapidly doubled-down on fossil fuels at the federal level, making the need for state leadership on climate action more crucial than ever— but Connecticut and New York state policy does not yet reflect the urgency of the moment.

That’s why Save the Sound is proud to announce the launch of our Henry L. and Grace Doherty Climate and Resilience Institute, a place-based climate change hub for individuals, communities, and decision-makers. Focused on policy and

science, Institute staff will use newly generated data and metrics to educate the public, engage stakeholders, and deploy the nature-based solutions necessary to cut climate pollution, protect our habitats, and stabilize our shorelines.

The priorities of the institute include: •

Advancing Climate Science

•

Building Public Demand for Climate Action

•

Winning Policy Change

The Institute was created thanks to a gift from the Henry L. and Grace Doherty Charitable Foundation and is already expanding our capacity to accelerate climate change awareness, win policy measures that reduce climate pollution, share science that demonstrates the impacts of climate change, and implement nature-based solutions that will protect ecosystems and neighborhoods.

Meet the people behind the Institute To kickstart the Doherty Institute’s work, Save the Sound hired two staff members, Scott Redfern, our senior manager of the Doherty Climate & Resilience Institute, and Julianna McVeigh, our Climate & Resilience campaigns manager.

Scott is focusing on moving policy ideas into action by mobilizing people, coalitionbuilding, advocating with public officials, and educating voters. He left his first career in technology, where he held product development leadership roles in startups and global enterprises (including IBM & Dell), to work on preserving our land, air, and water while addressing the impacts of climate change in our cities and towns.

“I am thrilled to join Save the Sound and to lead our efforts in tackling one of the most consequential issues of our time.”

Greenwich, Connecticut

Julianna is working to connect climate data to action through policy and storytelling.

With a Bachelor of Science in Public Health Education from William Paterson University of New Jersey and a Master of Public Health focused on health policy and climate change from Yale School of Public Health, she thrives at the intersection of health and the environment and is thrilled to get to do both at Save the Sound. “I am excited to collaborate with community members and advocate for equitable climate policy and resilience in our region.”

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SoundBites INSIDE: Latest Environmental News

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