The federal government, along with Connecticut and New York, has issued 22 grants totaling $1.3 million to projects designed to improve the long-term health of Long Island Sound.
The projects will open 12.4 miles of river for passage of native fish and restore 80 acres of coastal habitat. Connecticut organizations received 13 of the grants while New York received eight. The last one went to the University of Maryland to study the sound in both states. The organizations themselves will provide an additional $1.4 million to complete their work.
The recipients for the Connecticut projects include The Nature Conservancy to open up river and restore floodplain in Lyme; Connecticut Fund for the Environment to restore fish habitat in Old Mystic; and the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Connecticut to treat 181,518 gallons of stormwater annually.
The money from these projects comes from a public-private program with funds from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Fish & Wildlife Foundation, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the Long Island Sound Funders Collaborative, and the Dissolved Oxygen Environmental Benefit Fund.
