New Haven Independent

The reception was held at the Community Foundation building on Audubon Street; NHEJN Chair Lynne Bonnett joked that it was a step up from the police substation where they held their previous three awards events. The presence of two toddlers and an infant in the crowd pointed up the reason why environmental justice — including equal access to clean air and clean water, whether you live in a city or on top of a mountain — is an issue worth fighting for.

Among the groups honored last night, there was a kind of symbiosis — like the symbiosis that occurs in the natural world where both organisms benefit from the relationship.

There was the symbiosis of three organizations that all worked together to get more residents in New Haven than any other city in the state to sign up for clean energy. Energy Northeast did the policy work on the issue, while New Haven Action, a Yale student group, did a lot of the outreach. Rob Smuts (pictured below) in Mayor John DeStefano’s office promoted the concept as a city initiative.

The synergy went even beyond that, since City Seed was honored for the four farmers’ markets it runs in New Haven, and it was at the farmers’ markets that New Haven Action recruited many people to sign up for clean energy.

“The Connecticut Clean Energy Option is a program that allows residents to sign up for clean energy, so instead of having electricity come from oil or gas, you’re funding electricity that comes from wind or water,” said Whitney Haring-Smith of New Haven Action. “This has an amazing impact to build the demand, to build the market, for clean energy.” For every 100 customers who sign up, New Haven gets a solar panel placed to generate power in a public space. So far, the city’s qualified for four panels.

Jennifer McTiernan (pictured), executive director of City Seed, explained why her organization was honored.

“The Environmental Justice Network recognized all the wonderful things that happen at a farmer’s market, including economic development, community development, and supporting sustainable agriculture and a more sustainable food system. We’ve estimated that the amount of money that went back into the local economy to the farmers this year was about $350,000, which is pretty amazing. We also redeemed over $40,000 in WIC coupons, which are for nutritionally at-risk women, infants and seniors.” And the markets began accepting food stamps too.

The markets are in Fair Haven, Edgewood, downtown and Wooster Square. Most of the markets were open from July through October; Wooster Square opened in May and closed last Saturday — the day after a big snowstorm. Besides being a place to buy healthy, local, reasonably priced food, the farmers’ markets are a neighborhood gathering place. Some foodies will be in withdrawal until they reopen next year.

Individual awards went to Fair Haven Alderman Joe Jolly and East Rock Alderwoman Elizabeth Addonizio (pictured) for their dogged work on an issue that’s as important as it is abstruse — building environmental protections into the restructured regional Water Pollution Control Authority.

“What we did,” explained Joe Jolly (shown at left below with his wife Susan Rivers and daughter Ellie), “was take a deal that we thought might adversely impact the environment and we built into it what we think are pretty solid environmental protections that would safeguard the fact that New Haven was losing more control over an entity that could severely impact New Haven’s coastline and New Haven’s air quality.” The WPCA serves New Haven, Hamden, Woodbridge and North Haven but had been controlled just by New Haven. The reorganization provides for more participation by the other towns. Jolly and Addonizio were able to build in some protections for New Haven, which now has just four of the nine seats on the authority, since the facility itself — and any attendant environmental pollution — is in New Haven.