Introducing out next stormwater utility webinar, Starting A Stormwater Utility: Learning from the South Burlington Experience! In this webinar, the Stormwater Superintendent of South Burlington, VT, Dave Wheeler, will discuss the process of establishing the first stormwater utility in the state. This webinar will provide further detail on various aspects of setting up and […]
Programs
You Might Want to Consider a Stormwater Utility
April 5th, 2020 Presented By Dave Dickson and Mary Looney, UConn CLEAR In the 2021 legislative session, the Connecticut General Assembly passed a law authorizing all CT towns to set up a stormwater utility/fee. Stormwater utilities are often touted as an equitable way to help pay for increasing municipal stormwater management costs while also helping […]
Know Farms, Know Your Food
An event co-organized by UConn Extension’s Grown ConNECTed program helps the community get to know the farmers responsible for their favorite local foods Know Farms, Know Your Food
Fact Sheets Help Local Leaders in CT Navigate Climate Change Questions
Adapt CT offers guidance on matters ranging from beach erosion to the flooding of coastal highways Fact Sheets Help Local Leaders in CT Navigate Climate Change Questions
The NEMO Rain Garden App – Reborn!
March 24, 2021 Presented By Dave Dickson, UConn Extension and CLEAR Nearly eight years ago, CLEAR’s NEMO program first launched an app to help homeowners, landscapers, developers, and municipalities properly site, size, install, and maintain a rain garden to help protect their water resources. The app has since expanded to include state-specific rain garden sizing […]
Another Summer Chapter for a Climate Corps Student
By Sarah Schechter, UConn Class of 2021 In the fall of my sophomore year at UConn, I enrolled in EVST 3100 – “Climate Resilience and Adaptation: Municipal Policy and Planning.” This is a course about climate change that allows students to look at real world problems and learn how to solve them in a classroom […]
Black Lives Matter
CLEAR unequivocally stands with the Black Lives Matter movement and related efforts to address inequality in how we treat, include, reach out to, think about, understand, support, and listen to members of the Black community.
CT MS4 Permit update: What should be done and what’s next?
June 16, 2020 Presented By Dave Dickson, UConn CLEAR This webinar will provide an update on where towns and institutions should be under the deadlines out lined in the 2017 MS4 General Permit. It will also look ahead to the tasks to be addressed in year 4 of the permit cycle (ending June 30. 2021). […]
Water Quality Challenges in Groundwater Influenced Streams
May 20, 2020 Presented By Dr. Ashley Helton, UConn Department of Natural Resources and the Environment Groundwater discharge zones along river networks sustain water flow and provide thermal refugia for aquatic organisms while also acting as conduits of legacy contaminants, including nitrogen. Efforts to protect and manage groundwater-influenced stream ecosystems, however, are limited by our […]
Connecticut’s Changing Forests: What it Means for Carbon Dynamics and Climate Resilience
May 11, 2020 Presented By Dr. Robert Fahey, UConn Department of Natural Resources and the Environment Forests represent an important potential component of climate mitigation strategies and are increasingly being promoted as an important solution in addressing global climate change at local to global scales. However, the forests of Connecticut are entering a period of […]
Green Snow-Pro Training: Proven to Reduce Road Salt Impacts
May 6, 2020 Presented By Dr. Mike Dietz, UConn Department of Extension, CLEAR, CT Institute of Water Resources Let’s face it, the weather is improving (slightly), and the last thing anyone wants to think about is winter and road salt. However, now is the time to start planning for next year! New Hampshire’s Green Snow Pro […]
Learning from Cottontails: Successes and Challenges of the Young Forest Initiative
April 20, 2020 Presented By Lisa Wahle, Wildlife Management Institute, Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Young forest and shrubland, and the wildlife species that depend on these areas have been in decline for many years due to anthropogenic development on natural lands and the normal maturation of forests. The designation of the New England […]
Collaboratives & Utilities: New Options for Municipal Stormwater Management
March 30, 2020 Presented By Amanda Ryan, CLEAR MS4 Extension Options for funding stormwater management efforts in Connecticut are expanding. While our region has been slow to adopt stormwater utilities for raising funds for stormwater management efforts, that may be beginning to change with the state’s first-ever stormwater utility approved in the City of New […]
Emergency Changes to the Land Use Process in the COVID-19 Era
March 26, 2020 Presented By Sara C. Bronin, Thomas F. Gallivan Chair of Real Property Law, UConn Law School and Chair, Hartford Planning and Zoning Commission In the COVID-19 era, the law must balance the need to limit face-to-face interaction, the public interest in efficient municipal function, and the difficulties municipalities face in an era […]
UConn Environment Corps: Harnessing Student Power to Help Towns
March 25, 2020 Presented By Chet Arnold, CLEAR Director A UConn faculty partnership that reaches across departmental and college lines is engaged in an effort that seeks to enhance, expand and institutionalize a new model for community engagement at the University. The “Environment Corps” combines the familiar elements of classroom instruction, service learning and Extension […]
NEW CT 3D Lidar Viewer on CT ECO
The new Connecticut 3D Lidar Viewer marks the first time that 3D elevation points from remotely-sensed Lidar are available in an interactive format over the web. Lidar is a remote sensing technique to map elevation using a laser sensor on an airplane. The result is millions and millions of points that each have a measured […]
New option for taking nitrogen samples
There wasn’t a cheap and simple way to take field measurements of Total Nitrogen (TN). Samples had to be sent to a lab – until now! To help reduce water quality testing costs, CT DEEP agreed to allow MS4 communities to use less expensive field tests for nitrate and ammonia to estimate Total Nitrogen. If […]
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 […]
Getting to 2% – Case Studies in Impervious Cover Disconnection
November 14, 2019 Presented By Victor Benni, Town of East Lyme and Michael Dietz, UConn CLEAR We’ll highlight disconnection strategies from East Lyme and the UConn Storrs Campus. Vic Benni from East Lyme will share his method (and spreadsheet) for calculating total Directly Connected Impervious Area (DCIA) and describe some of the Low Impact Development […]
Stormwater Utilities in Connecticut
October 1, 2019 Presented By Amanda Ryan, UConn CLEAR, David Dickson, UConn CLEAR, Joe Lanzafame, City of New London and Randy Collins, CT Conference of Municipalities (CCM) Stormwater utilities are used across the country as a way for municipalities to cover the costs of installing and maintaining their stormwater infrastructure. The concept has been slow […]