June 15th, 2022 Presented by Dr. Warren Campbell, Western Kentucky University Dr. Warren Campbell from Western Kentucky University has been collecting and analyzing information on stormwater utilities in the US for 15 years. He has been described as a human encyclopedia of stormwater utilities. In this webinar, he will dive into how widespread stormwater utilities are […]
NEMO
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 […]
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 […]
Of Witch Hazel and Wood Frogs
Here at CLEAR I don’t think anyone would claim to be a naturalist, at least of any skill or repute. But that doesn’t prevent our collective and individual enjoyment of the natural world, including the signal events that mark the turning of the seasons. For me (forgive me, crocus fans), there are really three signature […]
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 […]
Rain Garden App!
I’ve only had my iPhone since May 2011. It’s not that I didn’t think they were cool and useful (I had bought one for my wife a year before), I just was trying to delay joining the “in crowd” for a while longer. Now it seems like I have had it forever, and it is […]
New Rain Garden "How To" Website for Homeowners
CLEAR’s NEMO program recently partnered with the Connecticut Fund for the Environment‘s Save the Sound program to create a rain garden “how to” website, focused on helping Connecticut and New England homeowners build their own rain garden. The Rain Gardens website is meant to be a companion site to both the CT NEMO website and Save […]
NEMO Monitoring Project Looks at Nitrogen Processing by Bioretention
Last week CLEAR’s NEMO Program broke ground on a new monitoring project focused on the Low Impact Development (LID) practice of bioretention. Bioretention is the practice of reducing the quantity, and increasing the quality, of runoff by directing it to a depression filled with plants. This is the same concept as the more widely recognized rain garden, […]
NEMO U8 A Tentacular Success
UConn CLEAR, in partnership with the Northland NEMO program, held the 8th NEMO University (a.k.a NEMO U8) conference in Duluth, MN last month. The conference brings together outreach professionals from around the country, primarily from programs modelled after the CT NEMO program, to share innovative approaches and ideas to working with communities on land use and water […]
Rain Garden App Coming Soon!
Several CLEAR programs (o.k., since you asked, it’s the CT NEMO, National NEMO Network, and the Geospatial Training Programs) have teamed up to develop a “rain garden” app for smart phones. A rain garden is a vegetated depression that accepts and infiltrates runoff from a rooftop, driveway of other impervious surface. Unlike many “Low Impact […]
NEMO’s Rain Garden Demonstration Site
The NEMO team has just completed its second rain garden demonstration site at the Middlesex County Extension Center in Haddam (CLEAR and NEMO’s home-base). Rain gardens are shallow depressions in the landscape that typically include plants and a mulch layer or ground cover. Their purpose is to help retain water runoff during a storm event, allowing […]
CLEAR Faculty Receive EPA Award
CT NEMO’s Michael Dietz and Chet Arnold have been given the Environmental Merit Award through EPA Region 1, for their work on New England Rain Garden Trainings. To date, they have presented trainings in Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. EPA’s Environmental Merit Award is an annual award that recognizes outstanding environmental advocates who have made significant […]
LID in Connecticut: a Virtual Tour Webinar
CLEAR’s LID in Connecticut: a Virtual Tour of Where It’s Working Webinar held on March 13th is now online. Information and registration for upcoming webinars can be found in our CLEAR 2012 Webinar Series section. Past webinars can be found in the CLEAR Webinar Library.
National NEMO Network Webinars
The National NEMO Network is hosting several webinars in 2012. The first webinar “NEMO Programs and the Healthy Watersheds Initiative” was held on March 7th and is now online at http://nemonet.uconn.edu/webinars/healthy_watersheds/. The next webinar is “Surrogate TMDLs-Better Than the Real Thing?” and will be held on May 2nd, 2012. For more information and to register visit http://nemonet.uconn.edu/webinars. […]
Residential Rain Garden Training
Rain gardens are shallow depressions in the landscape that typically include plants and a mulch layer or ground cover. In addition to providing increased groundwater recharge, they are expected to provide pollutant treatment. Pollutant treatment in rain gardens has been attributed to adsorption, decomposition, ion exchange and volatilization. The CT NEMO Program is teaching a 1.5 […]