Two-Day Meeting in Port Jeff Will Provide Update on All Parts of LI Sound Program

If you’re wondering what exactly is going on in Long Island Sound, at least from the perspective of government managers, there’s a two-day meeting later this month in Port Jefferson where you can find out. EPA’s Long Island Sound program is bringing people together to talk about nutrients and hypoxia, fish and wildlife habitats and how they’ve changed, changes in land use and population in the Sound’s watershed, and populations of fish and birds and animals such as seals, among other things.

The Long Island Sound study, which later became the Sound program, officially started in the summer of 1985, so this will essentially be a 20-year update.

Mark Tedesco, who runs the Sound program, told me that the meeting is mainly to get the program’s management committee and staff together so people working in different areas and on different problems can listen and talk to one another. But management committee meetings have always been open to the public (admirably and understandably, in my opinion) and this one is too.

It will be from 9:30 a.m. until 5:45 p.m. on July 20 and from 8 a.m. until 2 p.m. on July 21, at Danfords Inn, in Port Jefferson. I’m sure much of it will be dry and technical, and there will be far too many hard-to-follow Power Point presentations, but if you’re interested in what the establishment thinks is going on in the Sound, it will be essential.

I might try to get out there myself for one of the two days, to see how comfortably I slip back into the role of reporter, and become the first blogger to cover a Sound event.