Healthy Waters
You want fish and wildlife to thrive in a healthy Long Island Sound. Sewage treatment plants have to meet safe nitrogen standards. Cities and towns have to reduce stormwater runoff and protect the Sound from curbside pollution.
The primary pollutant that threatens the current and future health of the Sound is excess nutrients, particularly nitrogen, entering the water from our wastewater treatment plants, septic systems, fossil fuel burning, and fertilizer use. High nitrogen loads can overfertilize coastal waters, causing the growth of excess seaweed and phytoplankton. Oxygen is consumed as these plant-like organisms and the animals that feed on them respire, die, and decompose; in some cases causing a perilous low oxygen condition, called “hypoxia.” High nutrient levels can lead to fish die-offs, harmful algae blooms, loss of coastal marshes, and increased ocean acidification which is harmful to shellfish.
How Nitrogen Hurts the Sound
Excess nitrogen robs Long Island Sound of oxygen every summer, creating hypoxic dead zones. Without enough oxygen, fish, lobsters, crabs, and other aquatic animals struggle to breathe. In recent years, 20 percent of Long Island Sound had oxygen levels too low to support life. If not fixed, species will die. High nitrogen levels also causes toxic algae blooms that force closures of shellfish beds on Long Island’s north shore, and rapidly deteriorate marshes around the Sound.
Help heal the Sound’s ecosystem, and dramatically reduce the amount of nitrogen.
For 15 years, Save the Sound worked with the EPA to curb nitrogen pollution in the Long Island Sound region. We passed stricter nitrogen limits. Connecticut and New York sewage treatment plants now meet the nitrogen Total Maximum Daily Load. In 2015, we petitioned the EPA to develop a robust new nitrogen reduction plan for Long Island Sound. With strong public support, we prevailed. In early 2016 EPA announced its strategy to tackle the biggest remaining sources of nitrogen from the five states that drain to the Sound: Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire. This must include sewage treatment plant upgrades in the northern states, reduction of stormwater pollution from the entire watershed, and using the EPA’s existing powers to slash nitrogen from local sources like broken and failing sewer pipes, septic systems, and cesspools.
Runoff
Most people don’t think twice about rain water as it flows down the curb and into a storm drain. But along the way, these urban streams pick up all the nasty pollutants that litter our streets. Whether its cigarette butts or drops of salt and oil, everything on our city streets gets flushed into storm drains, and ultimately into our lakes, rivers, and Long Island Sound. Runoff is a significant contributor to the dead zone and beach closings, and impacts fisheries and shellfish harvesting.
Save the Sound is committed to battling polluted runoff with our green projects program and volunteer-based rain garden building project. We work with cities and towns like Bridgeport and Southington to green their downtowns, cool their neighborhoods, and improve property values by installing vegetated swales, rain gardens, and green roofs—all designed to absorb rain water before it picks up pollution and rushes off into our rivers and harbors.
