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03/23/2016 07:00 AMJamie Vaudrey, an assistant research professor with the Department of Marine Sciences at the University of Connecticut, has spent years studying recesses in the coastlines in Long Island Sound including bays and harbors.
Vaudrey says Branford and Clinton are examples of Connecticut shoreline communities that have harbors and bays at high risk for problems related to nitrogen.
A detailed look at the data gathered from Branford and Clinton during the course of Vaudrey’s studies show the harbors are suffering from nitrogen coming from a variety of sources, including sewer outfall, septic systems, fertilizer (with private lawns tallied separately from golf courses, parks and recreational fields, and agriculture use including hayfields and pasture), and what’s called atmospheric deposition, from sources like rain, snow, and dust.
For Branford:
• The nitrogen load is dominated by human waste, with 41 percent from wastewater treatment facility output and 24 percent from septic systems.
• For septic, 14 percent of the septic load is from homes within 200 meters of the water.
• Fertilizer contributes 13 percent of the nitrogen, with 76 percent attributed to fertilizer applied to private lawns. The majority of the nitrogen from fertilizer (61 percent) is coming from areas more distant from the harbor, further inland, though 12 percent of the fertilizer comes from areas within 200 meters of the water.
• Atmospheric deposition contributes 13 percent, and atmospheric deposition directly to the surface water of the embayment contributes nine percent.
For Clinton:
• The nitrogen load is also dominated by human waste, with 49 percent from septic systems (with no sewer outfall to this site).
• For septic, 11 percent of the septic load is from homes within 200 meters of the water.
• Fertilizer contributes 20 percent of the nitrogen, with 60 percent attributed to fertilizer applied to private lawns. The majority of the nitrogen from fertilizer (64 percent) is coming from areas closer to the water but further than 200 meters; just five percent of the fertilizer comes from areas within 200 meters of the water.
• Atmospheric deposition to the land contributes 20 percent, and atmospheric deposition directly to the surface water of the embayment contributes 11 percent.
Data collected about another problem area, bacteria levels, and published in a tool called the Sound Health Explorer, available online, shows a wide range of water quality levels along the Connecticut shoreline, from an “A plus” at Old Saybrook Town Beach, to a “C” at Clinton Town Beach, a “C plus” at Jacobs Beach in Guilford, and a “C minus” at Branford Point Beach.
Solutions are being sought along the shoreline, but also all along the Connecticut River watershed, says Andrew Fisk, director of the Connecticut River Watershed Council (CWRC), which supported the CFE’s petition to the EPA. “It’s important for people to remember that Long Island Sound is a public trust resource, and we all have legal standing to say what we want for our waters, and what healthy waters mean,” he says. “When we’re looking at watersheds, we have to look as far upstream as it makes sense to do so.”
He points out that the Connecticut River watershed contributes 70 percent of freshwater into Long Island Sound. “And so we have a role that’s defined by that fact.” To that end, the CRWC is working on reducing sources of pollution hundreds of miles from the sound, along the Connecticut River as far up as Vermont and New Hampshire.