There’s nothing like the smell of fresh cut grass in the springtime…after a long winter we all seem to be longing for something green. Our lawns provide a place for recreation, but if not managed properly, they can cause problems for our local waters, and ultimately the Long Island Sound. Perhaps you fertilize your lawn, […]
NEMO
Harnessing Student Power to Find Greener Stormwater Options
If you were out and about in the towns of North Haven, Milford, Hamden, West Haven or Cheshire this summer, you may have seen a team of four young adults writing on clipboards, snapping pictures of parking lots, laying their phones down on the sidewalk, and peering down into storm drains. These four intrepid UConn […]
CT’s First Stormwater Utility!
Earlier this summer, New London became the first municipality in Connecticut to establish a stormwater utility which goes into effect January 1, 2019. This means they will begin charging all property owners a fee for their contribution to the city’s stormwater runoff. Previously, New London relied on property taxes to fund maintenance of their stormwater […]
Is there any hope to fix our salt problem? Perhaps…
Another winter has finally ended, and messy roads and salty cars are quickly becoming a distant memory. Where did all that salt go? The millions of tons of deicing salts that get applied to our roads either wash off into local streams, or move into the local groundwater. Yet another research study has recently come […]
What do you do after you scoop?
On my drive home last week I saw two of my neighbors walking their dogs. One of the dogs had just done his business and the owner dutifully scooped it up with a doggy doodie bag dangling from the dog’s leash. Excellent, I thought, he knows that dog poop left on the street can be […]
Another win for rain gardens
It’s well known that rain gardens are great for infiltrating stormwater but people may not realize that they also help destroy common stormwater pollutants. Several studies have found that rather than accumulating pollutants in their soils, rain gardens tend to biodegrade them instead. One study (LeFevre et al., 2011) investigated petroleum hydrocarbon levels in 58 […]
New Hampshire’s Green Snow Pro: Would it Work in CT?
March 20, 2018 Presented By Ted Diers from the NH Watershed Management Bureau & Mary McCarthy, Program Manager, Educational Outreach The State of New Hampshire has developed a novel way to provide for effective snow management and removal while also reducing impacts of chlorides on the environment. The Green Snow Pro program provides training and […]
NEW Connecticut Statewide Impervious Surface Map Layers
With funding from CT DEEP, CLEAR has acquired and made available on CT ECO a new statewide, high-resolution, impervious cover data layer. While acquired to support new stormwater regulations, the layer can be used for other purposes as well. What is it? Statewide, 1 foot resolution raster (pixel) data where each pixel is one of […]
Another winter approaches…here comes the salt
This is not my first blog about salt- in 2013 I detailed the problems we are facing in the Northeast with rising salt levels in our fresh waters in this blog. I have continued the monitoring in Eagleville Brook that I described in the past blog, and now four years later, I have the ability […]
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 […]
Consequences of Road Salt Use in Connecticut
February 14, 2017 Presented By Mike Dietz, UConn CLEAR & Lukas McNaboe, UConn Grad Student Road salt use continues to increase in cold regions of North America. State Departments of Transportation and Municipal Public Works managers need to provide safe travel conditions for the public, however all of the salt applied to our roads ends […]
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 […]
Groundwater 101
November 9, 2016 Presented By Dr. Gary Robbins, Dept of Natural Resources & the Environment, University of Connecticut Connecticut has an abundance of good quality groundwater owing to its geologic past. In this webinar, Dr. Gary Robbins, Hydrogeologist at UCONN, will discuss our groundwater resources—where they are, how much we might have and use, their […]
NEMO Program to Help Communities Navigate the New Stormwater Permit
CLEAR’s venerable, award-winning NEMO (Nonpoint Education for Municipal Officials) Program is embarking on a five-year program to assist Connecticut communities in complying with the state’s revised “General Permit for the Discharge of Stormwater from Small Municipal Separate Storm Sewer Systems,” or the MS4 permit. Stormwater runoff is a major source of flooding, erosion and […]
A Firsthand Rain Garden
Stormwater is one of the largest polluters of surface water in our area. When rain falls to the ground and lands on impervious surfaces (such as roads, rooves, driveways, and more), the water collects all of the pollutants on this impervious cover and dumps them in concentrated amounts wherever the stormwater drains to. Often, the […]
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 […]
Low Impact Development in CT: Policies, Drivers, and Barriers
April 5, 2016 Presented By David Dickson & Chet Arnold, UConn CLEAR The concept of low impact development (LID) has been around for quite some time now. So….is Connecticut buying it? If so, how much? If not, why not? New research by CLEAR’s NEMO Program provides some answers to these questions. This webinar will review […]
A Map in an App: Drainage Class for 25 States
The Rain Garden App In case you haven’t heard, a couple of years ago, NEMO (David Dickson and Mike Dietz) created a cool smartphone app that is all about building rain gardens. It is full of background information including what a rain garden is, how it works, pictures of existing rain gardens and even videos about how […]
Rain Garden 2014 Growing Season Time Lapse
The rain garden demonstration site at the Middlesex County Extension Center in Haddam (CLEAR and NEMO’s home-base) was installed in May 2012. It was originally installed to be featured in two new NEMO projects, a smartphone application and a “how to” rain garden website, both now complete. The two projects focus on helping people easily […]
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 […]