Policy

Park Watershed routinely provides information and testimony regarding local urban infrastructure and field conditions that effect state and federal environmental policy issues as appropriate with respect to our organizational mission. Smart, up-to-date public policies are essential to healthy natural resources. For updates on key state environmental policy issues, we refer to state environmental policy specialists:

Significant federal environmental protections to clean air and clean water have been removed. Although Connecticut State environmental standards are robust, federal support of fossil fuels will undermine clean air and accelerate the damage of climate change. Your choices as a consumer, investor, and voter are fundamental to a fossil free future.

Please take time to contact government staff as well as officials elected to address municipal, state and federal government policies and regulations.

Learn more about our state water plan, see the Connecticut State Water Planning Council  

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WATERS OF THE USA, is an important local issue that depends upon clear federal policy. Although the public comment period for the rule closed on November 14, 2014, the rule has not passed the US House and Senate. National news coverage reveals resistance especially from industrial agricultural media. EPA staff presented the facts at a recent National Clean Water Law Seminar, as reported by Bloomberg News.

The proposed Waters of the USA rule clarifies the value of healthy water quality in upstream tributaries such as Trout Brook, Piper Brook, and Bass Brook that converge as the South Branch; and tributaries such as Wash Brook, Tumble Brook, Beamans Brook, and Filley Brook that converge into the North Branch of the Park River. The convergence of the North and South Branches, and Gully Brook form the Park River that flows into the navigable waters of the Connecticut River, which is the largest source of fresh water to the Long Island Sound.

Learn more: Read the two page proposed definition of “Waters of the United States” by EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers. Due to recent Supreme Court decisions, this clarification of the scope of waters protected under the 1972 Clean Water Act is now needed.  For further information, see the US EPA website, Waters of the USA.