Save the Sound Dispatch

Find out in the 2024 Long Island Sound Report Card   How’s the water? It’s the question Save the Sound’s staff are asked more than any other. And it’s one that requires a nuanced answer, depending on what “water” you’re talking about. The 2024 Long Island Sound Report Card, which we released on October 10 at multiple press events across the region, provides answers about the ecological health of the Sound, evaluating how well the water can…

  On the Monday following the long Fourth of July weekend, New York State Assemblymember Fred Thiele took his turn at the podium, flanked by an assembly of unlikely allies. He was addressing a bill that he’d sponsored in Albany—the Suffolk County Water Quality Restoration Act—which had already passed the state and county legislatures, been signed by Governor Kathy Hochul, and minutes later would be signed into law by Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine. It was the…

By Betsy Painter Soaring along the water, one of the wonders sailors are privy to is how the coastline alters with each habitat, like a gradient of landscapes shifting from sandy beaches to rocky shores, then grassy meadows. These coastal meadows are wetlands—habitats where land and water mix and merge, fluctuating with the rain and tides. Coastal wetlands help keep the very water we sail through healthy by filtering out pollutants and trash, and acting as a…

Having grown up sailing on Long Island Sound, Tricia Leicht has always felt sailors should work to protect “their local playground.” A former board chair with the Junior Sailing Association of Long Island Sound (JSA) and now working for Save the Sound, she reached out to the JSA to see if they were interested. Current board chair Tim Clark was eager to partner the organizations and bring environmental programming to young sailors. The program became known as “Sound Advocates.”     Save the Sound…

Inside the marbled halls of One First Street NE, things were heating up. The Supreme Court session was strolling toward recess, and several of its biggest decisions were still to be handed down—including decisions with profound consequences for the Long Island Sound region. The world outside was already hot. Washington, D.C. simmered through an early summer heat wave; a week earlier, the city endured its first 100-degree June day since 2012. Daily temperature records dropped across the…

From his vantage point on the deck of the Cecelia Anne, the 143-foot catamaran ferrying from New London, CT on a mid-May morning, everything clicked into focus for Charles Rothenberger. As he scanned the steely spread of the open ocean, he realized he was looking at the future. In the distance were five turbines off Block Island – “America’s Starting Five,” as they’re called by Orsted, the company that installed the first offshore wind farm in the…

Peter Linderoth, would like to offer you some skittles. Not the candy, though the ones he has in mind are also little digestible bursts of color. These skittles, though, are no empty calorie confection. They’re packed with substance. And, if you care about water quality in Long Island Sound and the rivers and streams that feed it, they’re actually good for you. “Creating awareness about Long Island Sound conditions is really important,” said Linderoth, director of water…

By Lindsay Skedgell and David Seigerman   Melissa Pappas saw what she came to see. Though it wasn’t what everyone else was looking at. Melissa had positioned herself at the back of a pack of thirty people gathered in a dirt clearing in Merwin Meadows Park. The ground was pocked with tire tracks from heavy machinery, on site at long last to take down Dana Dam. For eighty years, the dam in Wilton, CT also known as…

By Lindsay Skedgell, Ecological Communications Specialist   Annalisa Paltauf has been managing the cleanup program for Save the Sound for seven years. An avid trail runner and cyclist, she spends most of her free time outdoors, appreciating what nature has to offer. “Since college, I have had a strong interest in preserving the environment,” says Paltauf. She believes cleanups are important because they provide immediate, tangible benefits and change, while encouraging community involvement and connection. Trash poses…

By Lindsay Skedgell, Ecological Communications Specialist Why remove a dam? What happens once a dam has been removed? These questions are explored in the Long Island Sound River Restoration Network’s (RRN) new Dam Removal Report. In the report, the RRN, a network of Connecticut and New York-based organizations dedicated to the restoration and health of the region’s rivers, presents the benefits of removing dams to restore free-flowing rivers. By collectively developing projects, sharing resources, communicating benefits of…