By John Hall
The article below was posted before the Feb. 21 & 22 workshop sessions. Since then, we have learned that there will be a follow-up workshop and presentation at Wesleyan University on April 30. The exact time and campus location of that event have not been announced, but we will add those details to this post when they become available. Continue reading
Please let us know your thoughts about the use of “automated traffic enforcement safety devices” (i.e. cameras) to reduce deaths and serious injuries of pedestrians and bicyclists. (Read the article “How To Reduce Speeding” posted earlier on our website.) If you support such use, please add your name, street address, and town to a petition to the governing body of your town of residence (especially Middletown and Portland) requesting the adoption of a local ordinance that would permit the use of these devices in limited, prescribed locations.
by Krishna Winston
Currently president of the Jonah Center Board and chair of Middletown’s Resource Recycling Advisory Commission, Krishna Winston has been committed to environmental conservation since long before recycling became mandatory in the State of Connecticut in 1991. She served on the task force that designed Middletown’s first recycling program. In October of this year she spent sixteen hours going door to door on Middletown’s north side to inform residents about the new co-collection program beginning in November.
The Context
Connecticut’s waste crisis became impossible to ignore once the MIRA trash-to-energy plant shut down in the summer of 2022, leaving 49 towns—representing about a third of the state’s trash—in the lurch. But the crisis has been in the making far longer. For decades the state DEP (now DEEP) has been setting targets for reducing waste, and time and again those targets have been missed. With more and more disposable and single-use items, along with packaging, much of it difficult or impossible to recycle, many residents’ trash carts are filled to overflowing. Because of contamination, single-stream recycling, originally intended to simplify and promote more recycling, has actually lowered the value of the material collected. To separate mixed recyclables into marketable commodities, material-recovery facilities (MRFs), like the one recently inaugurated by Murphy Road Recycling in Berlin’s industrial park, must be equipped with sophisticated and costly equipment imported from other countries. Whereas recycling once brought in some revenue, in recent years municipalities and hauling companies have been paying for recycling, and the cost keeps going up. Continue reading
The proposed connector trail is indicated by the yellow line. The Arrigoni Bridge is at the bottom.
Let’s make it possible to bicycle or walk safely from downtown Middletown to Main Street in Cromwell via a multi-use trail constructed on the existing access road the lies parallel to Route 9, between the highway and the railroad tracks.
Here’s the background: Governor Lamont’s Executive Order No. 21-03, signed on December 16, 2021, lists actions to be taken by CT State agencies to achieve the goals of the Governor’s Climate Change Coalition (GC3). Among them was this item:
DOT shall set a 2030 vehicle miles traveled reduction target and develop a plan of investments to contribute to and encourage the achievement of such targeted reductions. Continue reading
The Transportation Climate Initiative (TCI) is a carefully constructed regional plan to reduce carbon emissions from the transportation sector. If implemented, TCI will create allowances for the wholesale distribution of oil and gas, place a fee upon those allowances, and invest the resulting revenue in clean public transportation, electric vehicle infrastructure, and non-motorized transportation options such as bike routes. Over time, the allowances will decline and the cost will rise, to ensure lower emissions from transportation.
The emission reductions will occur because the revenue from the sale of allowances will be invested in clean transportation. For example, more electric school buses will use less gasoline and diesel fuel. That will also reduce emissions of particulate matter (PM) that are so harmful to respiratory health, especially for children whose developing lungs are especially vulnerable to particulate matter pollution. Asthma is often a direct result of PM pollution, and diesel school buses are notorious emitters of PM.
In short, TCI will produce a double benefit: 1) reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and 2) reduce air pollution that is especially harmful to children and low income residents of who live near highways and congested streets where air pollution is the worst.
In the 2021 session of the Connecticut General Assembly, TCI was vigorously opposed by Republicans and the oil and gas industry who called it a disguised gas tax that would lead to exorbitant gas prices at the pump that would ruin the economy and hurt the poor. But TCI actually includes a mechanism to ensure that the wholesale fees will not raise gas prices by more than 5 cents per gallon. And if Republicans really wanted to help the poor, they could 1) expand the child tax credit and the earned income tax credit that would offset a higher price for carbon, and 2) relieve the poor from the harmful effects of air pollution.
Since retail gas prices have risen in the past months, TCI is sure to face stiff opposition from its usual opponents. But if we delay climate action until a time when it is easy, painless, and convenient, we can be sure that no action will happen.
Urge Middletown’s Common Council and Mayor Florsheim to urge our local legislators and the leaders of the Connecticut General Assembly to pass legislation to enact TCI.
By Erik Assadourian
I was shocked and outraged to read that Governor Lamont would want to raise the gas tax by 5 cents by 2023 (2/18). Not because that’s too much, but because it is far too low.
As the frightful weather across the US reminds us, climate change, aka global weirding, is here. Bayous in Louisiana are iced over, millions are snowed in in Texas, even the Middle East has snow. Meanwhile the poles are melting more quickly every year, as new research finds.
And fossil fuels are the number one contributor. Thus, why would a tiny increase in gas taxes seem excessive? Frankly it is far too timid—especially considering the low price of gas right now (lower than 2005 and that’s not even adjusting for inflation). If anything Lamont should propose a much higher increase—both to pay for roads and transportation (including increasing and better subsidizing public transit and bike lanes to support both low-income residents and to encourage the shift away from the car) and of course to disincentivize driving and incentivize people buying more fuel efficient cars. Continue reading
*pronounced Es-SPAHL-Yay
I’ve often wondered about espaliered trees, and they even figured in a short piece of fiction I once wrote. Espalier is the art of training dwarf trees to grow in a flat plane along a wall, fence, or trellis. They create an atmosphere of mystery, wonder, and an evocation of some kind of Garden of Eden. I’ve stopped to admire them at botanical gardens and occasionally at Ballek’s nursery in East Haddam. Because we see them in famous gardens, we tend to think of them as expensive or unattainable, as something no longer possible. As you will learn, you can easily grow an espaliered fruit tree for under $20 (under $30 if you choose a tree with four different types of apple or pear bearing branches) but you’ll need some simple hardware that might cost another $15. Or, you could just use bamboo, the way growers do. You will likely have fruit much sooner. I never bought an espaliered fruit tree from a nursery, but I did buy a very tiny birch that Nancy Ballek had pruned on dwarf rootstock that was highly contorted. Sixteen years later it is still 30” tall and about 40” wide. That demonstrates the power of dwarf rootstock. And that is the secret of espalier. Continue reading
The aquatic plant known as the water chestnut (trapa natans, not the kind you eat in Chinese food) showed its invasive potential in recent summers at many points along the Connecticut River and its tributaries. In our own Floating Meadows, the freshwater, tidal marshland formed where the lower Coginchaug and Mattabesset Rivers converge, the presence of these plants was first recorded in 2009. The Jonah Center has been monitoring the area closely since 2013, pulling out a few plants each year.
The summer of 2016 marked a turning point. Since then, water chestnut plants have abounded, forming expansive, dense patches at multiple locations. in 2016, the Jonah Center and its partners removed approximately 48 canoes full in the course of 8 separate work parties. The pattern continued in 2017, 2018, and 2019. Then came the pandemic of 2020, when our ability to assemble large work parties became no longer feasible. Continue reading
In the course of our campaign to increase Middletown’s tree-planting budget, some people told us they would like to donate their own money to plant trees. That’s commitment! Then we heard about Sustainable CT’s program to match dollar for dollar any community-generated funds raised for qualified projects through IOBY (In Our Back Yards) – a crowdfunding service.For example, your $20 gift will instantly become a $40 gift.
Sites for new trees in Middletown and Portland are being considered. In Middletown, priority will be given to the North End, where the tree canopy is even sparser than in other parts of the city, and to high-visibility commercial corridors. In Portland, priority will be given to areas in the town’s central residential and commercial area where trees were removed for sidewalk replacement or due to disease. Funds will be allocated between the towns based on the residence of donors.
Click here to read more or donate. (100% of all donations will be used for trees; not administration.)
By Jane Harris, Middletown Arborist
Middletown, historically known as the “Forest City”, has been losing trees for many years at a faster rate than it has been planting them. With a small fixed budget for both tree removal (Public Works) and for tree planting and forestry services (Urban Forestry Commission), Middletown generally takes down between 50 and 75 dying or diseased trees per year. In the same period, twenty to thirty young trees are planted. In 2019, the number will be well over 100 trees taken down. And, because the Urban Forestry Commission saw a need to spend several thousand dollars on safety pruning of old and historic trees, even fewer new trees than usual have been planted. Continue reading
To: Members of the Common Council
I am writing to you with great concern that the Planning & Environmental Specialist position in the Dept. of Planning, Conservation, and Development may not be funded in FY2019. I understand the revenue/expense/general fund balance situation that the City faces, but eliminating the ES position would be a serious additional setback to a PCD Department that has already been damaged and has functioned very poorly over the past few years. More important, given the services and grant receipts that come with the P&ES position, eliminating this position would be financially detrimental in the long run. Continue reading
The following testimony by Tim Walsh of the Bruce Museum in Greenwich not only helped our legislative effort to protect snapping turtles, but it serves as a good summary of the science of the issue. Turtles still need protection. This bill only offers protection from commercial trapping. Habitat loss and resulting highway mortality are still threats to the majestic Snapping Turtle.
I am one of a group of citizens who have been urging legislation to protect snapping turtles from commercial trapping since 2012. This year, HB5354, A Bill Concerning Snapping Turtles and Red-Eared Slider Turtles, passed the Environment Committee 19-0, and an amended version of it passed the House of Representatives 141-0.
Please accept this letter as support for a cessation of legal harvest for the common snapping turtle, Chelydra serpentina in the State of Connecticut. Turtles are ancient creatures that walked the earth with the dinosaurs and today are important and visible elements in many ecosystems. Many species play key ecological roles, serving as both predators and prey, contributing to the cycling of nutrients, and acting as seed dispersers. Currently, turtles are the 2nd most endangered vertebrate group in the world. Approximately, 53% of the world’s species are threatened with extinction. We are not talking about just an endangered genus or species of animal, but an entire family. The decline of turtle species throughout their range is being fueled by habitat loss and modification, highway-related traffic mortality, and collection for the pet trade and human consumption. Continue reading