Author: Michael Dietz

Is your water safe to drink?

If you are like most people, as long as water comes out of the tap, you don’t give it much thought. If your water is supplied by a water company, stringent testing is required by law, and you will periodically receive results of the testing. If you are one of the 40% of Connecticut residents […]

What is a CFS anyway?

Certified Forestry Surveyor? Calculated Fournier Series? A recent conversation (most likely over a beer, but that doesn’t really factor in here…) with my neighbor provided fodder for this post. We were mapping out our route for opening day of fishing season, and I commented that the Fenton was running over 150 cfs, so it might […]

Drought in Connecticut? Who knew?

Connecticut is not the first place that would likely come to mind if I asked you to come up with a part of the country that experiences drought; the desert southwest and California might typically be first on the list. However, southern New England has received less than normal amounts of precipitation for the past […]

New Stormwater Regulations Spur a Look Back

Our family gatherings often involve interesting discussions (aka arguments) on politics, religion or other fun topics. Occasionally the conversations stray into the environmental arena. Although many in my family argue against “big government” getting in the way of everything, they have had to agree that some federal regulations like the Clean Water act and the […]

A small tribute to clean water in Connecticut’s capitol city.

Have you ever drunk water in a restaurant in the Hartford region? Maybe you live or work in one of the towns surrounding the City, and get your water from the Metropolitan District Commission (MDC)? We take this seemingly limitless supply of pure, clean water for granted, but in the not-so-distant past, obtaining water in […]

NYC Climate March Draws Hundreds of Thousands

Over four hundred thousand people from around the country, young and old, took action yesterday to make a statement about climate change. This event was one of many taking place around the world (http://peoplesclimate.org/), and drew national news attention. My stepfather Trip Barnett attended the march, and he told me that it was a life […]

Bringing Some Green to Our Big Cities

When people think of Hartford and New Haven, “green” may not be the first thing that jumps to mind. However, recent efforts of the UConn Nonpoint Education for Municipal Officials (NEMO) program are helping to make these cities a little bit greener, both figuratively and literally. This past June, NEMO partnered with Neighborhood Housing Services […]

The Power of Water

I have been known to occasionally get a bit sappy about water…and with good reason. I feel that I owe my passion for the environment, and for water specifically, to experiences and people that were part of my life as a young boy. My father, uncles and grandfather all took the time to take me […]

This winter will end…right?

“Hope and the future for me are not in lawns and cultivated fields, not in towns and cities, but in the impervious and quaking swamps. When, formerly, I have analyzed my partiality for some farm which I had contemplated purchasing, I have frequently found that I was attracted solely by a few square rods of […]

Water Please, Hold the Pharmaceuticals

The medicines that we all take are prescribed with the goal of improving our health in some way. Unfortunately, pharmaceuticals and other chemicals that we use are finding their way into our nation’s waterways, impacting aquatic life, and potentially threatening our health. There are two ways medications are finding their way into our water bodies, […]

A Watershed Moment

Many of us have heard about watershed protection efforts. Perhaps you live in a drinking water supply watershed. Poor Willy Wonka was wrongly accused of poisoning the watershed of his brown river (it turned out to be chocolate).  But what is a watershed, really? In physical terms, a watershed is an area of land that […]

The Salt of the Earth

Although signs of spring are appearing around us (crocuses are up at my house!), the remnants of winter linger. Piles of dirty snow snow still litter the landscape, refusing to yield to the lengthening days. Very soon our thoughts and activities will turn to all things spring; snowplows and road salt will be distant memories. […]

Dietz Gets Sappy About Water

It’s funny sometimes how seemingly unrelated events help to congeal an idea in your head (or in my case remind you of an idea that you had thought about before, and then forgotten…I am 40 after all!). Earlier this week I finally checked out the NPR story  that Don Waye from EPA had sent, that […]