S ince 1947, Connecticut has coordinated its water-protection efforts with neighboring states through its membership in the New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission.

Congress chartered NEIWPCC in that year. Since then, the Commission has added states, staff, and support for place-based programs such as the Long Island Sound Study.

In the Northeast, watersheds cross many political borders. The Connecticut River draws its waters from many states and the Province of Quebec. NEIWPCC has long been the means by which its member states pull together to protect their water resources.

NEIWPCC coordinates forums and events that encourage cooperation among the states, develops resources that foster progress on water issues, represents the region in matters of federal policy, trains environmental professionals, manages programs and grants, initiates and oversees scientific research, educates the public, and provides overall leadership in water management and protection.

Apart from the Commission’s formal meetings, perhaps no single part of NEIWPCC embodies better this mission of regional collaboration and state-federal engagement than the Commission’s nineteen active workgroups on such critical topics as harmful algal blooms, climate change, underground storage tanks, and non-point source pollution. At meetings, typically twice annually, the state-agency staff members who are tasked with these issues sit down with their peers from other states in the region and with federal officials, NEIWPCC staff members, and other practitioners to grapple with the ongoing and latest issues and trends in the field.

The agency is led by its seven member states (the six New England states and New York). State governors each appoint five of the Commission’s thirty-five members. Connecticut’s delegation comprises the head of the state’s environmental and public-health agencies supplemented by three experienced individuals, providing Connecticut with expert representation. As a member state, Connecticut appropriates funds to support the Commission’s work; the Commission sets state dues every five years. In fiscal 2016, the combined contribution from our states was $149,387 or 0.6 percent of the total monies directed to NEIWPCC during the year ($25,788,764). Most of the Commission’s funding comes from federal grants, state contracts, and fees generated by our training programs, but the dues paid by states are indispensable to NEIWPCC’s ability to serve Connecticut and the region. Below

are just a few of the achievements in 2016 that illustrate the significant return on Connecticut’s contribution to NEIWPCC.

2016 Selected Highlights: Connecticut

Thirty-one wastewater operators and other professionals gathered at East Windsor’s Scout Hall Youth Center on May 4 for a special edition of NEIWPCC’s popular Wastewater Microbiology and Process Control training. The class was taught by the respected Chicago-based instructor, author, and environmental microbiologist, Toni Glymph-Martin. The six-hour course focused on the role of bacteria and other microorganisms in the treatment process. Glymph-Martin’s reputation, knowledge, and sense of humor garnered a full house, as operators flocked to her class for the opportunity to meet and train with her. She is a senior environmental microbiologist with the Chicago Metropolitan Water Reclamation District and the author of the definitive wastewater microbiology handbook for plant operators.

NEIWPCC offers wastewater training to professionals in its member states seeking to enter or advance in the wastewater field. In that capacity NEIWPCC delivered 127 training classes to 2,741 participants across its member states. 11 of those classes were delivered in Connecticut, with 397 participants overall. Most of these classes accepted extra students in response to strong demand.

Early in fiscal 2016, seventy-seven water quality professionals gathered at the Metropolitan District Commission’s training center in Hartford for the 15th annual Manager’s Forum. NEIWPCC

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worked with the Connecticut Water Pollution Abatement Association to cosponsor the day-long event, which included discussions about current wastewater priorities, operator training and certifications, and regional initiatives to reduce the discharge of biological nutrients from wastewater plants.

The Manager’s Forum was also the backdrop of the commencement ceremony for the Connecticut Leadership Training Program’s Class of 2016. This popular program is developing a pool of qualified candidates for future management opportunities. This year, twenty individuals from across the state participated in the program. The students attended monthly classes in such topics as budgeting, finance, asset management, energy use, and public relations.

In 1999, removal of an eleven-foot-high dam on the Naugatuck River in Waterbury became the first of what would be many projects completed under the Long Island Sound Study’s Habitat Restoration Initiative. Last year NEIWPCC staff members at LISS began publishing information on its website about all of the work completed under this initiative.

The restoration initiative has funded control of phragmites (an invasive species) in a 67-acre wetland in Old Saybrook, the restoration of a 2.6-acre wetland in Stonington, and other projects.

The new Habitat Restoration Initiative website is designed for the public and for researchers and administrators. Listings for each project include a project description, a map, key milestones by date, and photographs, in many cases before and after images.

Detailed modeling by the Long Island Sound Study is anticipating the extent of sea-level rise and the migration of coastal marsh in Connecticut and New York between now and 2100. These results can help Connecticut, its cities and towns, its civic organizations, and others, to identify adaptation strategies such as land acquisition, marsh restoration, and infrastructure management. The study identifies which estuarine marshes are most at risk under different climate-change scenarios, how changes to a marsh will affect the ecological services it provides, and which marsh systems should be conserved. In fiscal 2016, LISS put some of the results of this modeling on a website, including interactive maps that allow users to compare coastal change and the likely migration of coastal marsh across sea-level-rise assumptions (low to high) and time frames (2050 and 2100).

Last year LISS also created a companion web resource on climate change, with special pages for educators and municipal officials. Other pages describe recent and ongoing research and monitoring projects and provide information to the general public.

On February 25, 2016, in East Windsor, a special one-day class helped states meet an EPA training requirement for sludge-incinerator operators. Sewage sludge is the organic by-product of the wastewater treatment process. Some facilities burn the sludge, substantially reducing its volume before landfilling. Sludge incinerators are regulated under the Clean Air Act. An EPA rule assigned amended performance standards and emissions limits for the sewage sludge incinerators. The rule mandates costly upgrades to incinerators and required incinerator operators to obtain new training related to the rule by last March. NEIWPCC joined

forces with the EPA and the North East Biosolids and Residuals Association to provide the training, attended by seventy operators.

Connecticut faces two special challenges under this rule. Incinerators there are burning a lot of sludge from out of state, but Connecticut alone bears the costs of upgrading those facilities to meet the new requirements. In addition, due to phosphorus limits in NPDES discharge permits, wastewater facilities in the state will soon be removing more phosphorus from wastewater, increasing sludge volumes and concentrations of nutrients.

On September 29, a consultant assisting the State of Connecticut held the first of six planned stakeholder meetings to inform the design of the first statewide water plan in the Constitution State. After the Legislature mandated the creation of the plan, NEIWPCC was the logical choice to provide managerial assistance. In fiscal 2016, NEIWPCC advised the new Connecticut State Water Council on its choice of lead engineer and negotiated a work contract with that firm. The law requires the Council to prepare a draft plan for public comment by July of 2017.

The keynote message at the 27th Annual Nonpoint Source Pollution Conference last spring was simple and compelling. Americans care about clean water, and they will respond well—if we communicate well. NEIWPCC worked with its cosponsor, the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, to hold the event in Hartford on April 20 and 21. 130 participants included many state and local water officials, consultants, and others. The Nonpoint Source Conference is one of several important regional gatherings that NEIWPCC sponsors every year, often with a host state agency. It returned last year to Connecticut for the first time since 2008.

NEIWPCC brought Eric Eckl, of the marketing and public relations firm Water Words That Work, from Maryland to deliver the keynote address. He suggested a strategy of targeting outreach to the most receptive audiences first, because those people are most likely to act on new information and inspire their neighbors to do the same. Other talks touched on agricultural pollution, septic systems, and low impact development. Other sessions discussed dam removal, stormwater management, and new grants for landowners.

In fiscal 2016, NEIWPCC staff members at the Interstate Environmental Commission District assisted the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection by conducting discharge-permit compliance inspections at eleven municipal water pollution control facilities and twelve industrial facilities, as far west as Stamford and as far east as New Haven. During these inspections, the staff checked processes and equipment and collect samples to test for parameters such as pH, temperature, residual chlorine, fecal coliform, metals, and nutrients.

The IEC District staff also collaborated with Connecticut DEEP on municipal separate-storm-sewer-system inspections. Staff members also continued water-quality monitoring of Long Island Sound, which the IEC has been conducting since 1991. In fiscal 2016, this comprised twelve weekly surveys of dissolved oxygen levels and potentially related water quality parameters at twenty-two stations in the far western part of the Sound.

New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission • 650 Suffolk Street, Suite 410, Lowell, MA 01854 Tel: 978-323-7929 • Fax: 978-323-7919 • mail@neiwpcc.org • www.neiwpcc.org

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