Work Starts to Revive the Long Island Sound Cleanup

Work will begin in earnest next week to try to persuade the state of Connecticut to fulfill its responsibility to clean up Long Island Sound, the details of which you can read here and here.

Save the Sound, the Connecticut
 Conference of Municipalities, and the American Council of Engineering
 Companies will hold a Clean Water Summit on Thursday, December 7, in Hartford. From Save the Sound’s advisory:

Experts and elected officials will discuss why the Clean Water Fund is important, what challenges have led us to today's inadequate funding levels, and the options available to ensure that appropriate funding is allocated in the future. Those involved will include DEP Commissioner Gina McCarthy, state Sens. John McKinney, Bill Finch and Eileen Daily, state Reps. Richard Roy, Cameron Staples, Robert Keeley and Clark Chapin, along with and MDC Chief Operating Officer Bob Moore, Connecticut Conference of Municipalities Executive Director Dominick DiGangi, Weston First
Selectman Woody Bliss, and others.

The state has put virtually nothing into the Clean Water Fund in recently after averaging almost $50 million annually for years. The result is that Connecticut’s part of the Sound cleanup has stalled. Finch and Legislator-Soundkeeper Terry Backer have proposed putting $70 million in the fund in 2007. To do so, they’ll have to persuade Speaker James Amann. Good luck with that.