Allan Appel Photo
Otterbach, on the right, among student listeners adjacent to the Sound.
In her 23 years as a teacher, advisor, and captain who takes her students out on the water, Kristi Otterbach said, she hasn’t sensed a moment so scary for the well being of Long Island Sound.
And she intends to do something about it.
Otterbach was among a group of two dozen — including students, faculty, and neighbors — who attended a press conference at the Sound School Monday morning convened by U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro to call attention to deep cuts in funding for Long Island Sound environmental projects in the Trump administration’s proposed budget.
Johnson showing his report on water quality improvement in the Sound.
Although the fiscal year 2018 budget has been issued in only its “skinny” version, DeLauro said it calls for an elimination of what are known as the “geographic programs” in the federal Environmental Protection Agency, which as a whole is facing a cut of about one-third of its budget.
That means a total cutting of funds that provide for monitoring, restoring, and keeping healthy not only the waters of Long Island Sound, but the Great Lakes, Puget Sound, and other bodies of water of national significance.
“This is an administration that does not value science,” DeLauro declared. “We are in for the fight of our lives.”
Gratz speaking with French, Hudson, DeLauro.
Also at some risk is $10 million that was approved for Sound cleanup and protection after DeLauro and the Congressional Long Island Sound Caucus, which she co-chairs with Republican New York Rep. Lee Zeldin, fought to get the number up from $6 million.
The $10 million is in the fiscal year 2017 budget, but it’s not approved yet — although DeLauro said she expected it to be this week — as the House struggles to keep the government open amid threat of a shutdown.
“They haven’t released the [budget] numbers,” she said. “We don’t know the disposition, although we have at least on paper that commitment.”
If it’s less than the historic $10 million, DeLauro said, voices are going to be raised. She and other speakers termed the cuts foolhardy after so much has already been invested. They suggested the issue of protecting the Sound was completely bipartisan, or should be.
Kids from Zach LeClair’s Wintergreen Magnet School class were visiting, drawing sea creatures and visiting the marsh.
DeLauro called the route to success advocacy based, after the model of the public outcry against the proposed elimination of the Affordable Care Act. She asked for the same kind of outcry from the audience for the new fight for the funds in the the 2018 budget.
The proposed program cuts are extreme, she said. The initiatives on the chopping block include ongoing and successful efforts like the measurement and control of hypoxia in the water from nitrogen releases, the restoration of fish populations, management of wastewater, and improvement of Sound beaches, such as the beach at Lighthouse Point, which the Connecticut Fund for the Environment CEO Curt Johnson, another of the speakers, termed now a “B‑plus” beach.
Estuaries funding chart, with average of -4 million yearly since 2009.
Taken in the context of other proposed cuts in the Trump budget — which include, DeLauro said, $6.9 billion to the National Institutes of Health, $900 million to the Department of Energy — the elimination of the geographic programs that most of the Sound’s initiatives derive from amount to what DeLauro termed “an all-out war on environmental policies.”
Otterbach heard the call for advocacy. She asked DeLauro to whom she and her students, in collaboration with the Sound School administration, should write, and what they should say.
“The bipartisan estuary caucus, and you should overwhelm the system [with your communications],” DeLauro replied.
“It takes persistence,” said Johnson. He also suggested that Otterbach and the school invite principals on the appropriations committee to come to the school and stand where all were standing this day, by the shores of the Sound.
DeLauro urged Otterbach and the students in the audience to write their personal stories of their relationship to the Sound. “I’ll go to the floor of the House and tell them what my constituents have done,” she said.
This second grader’s squid made it to the press conference.
Among the other speakers were Sound School Principal Rebecca Gratz; Louis Burch, of the Citizen’s Campaign for the Environment; Connecticut Audubon Executive Director Stewart Hudson; and University of Connecticut Professor of Earth Science Rebecca French, who said it is extremely critical not to cut funds for scientific measurement of water temperature, wave height, and evidence of continuing reduction in hypoxia-causing nitrogren, just at a time when compelling evidence for improvement is surfacing.
Several will be joining DeLauro this week in Washington to lobby other representatives.
I never understood why the environment should be a political issue divided along party lines. Who is against clean water? Who is against clean air? For as long as I can remember, we swam, fished and sailed in Long Island sound as well as on some of Connecticut's beautiful lakes. You simply cannot leave protecting the environment to a capitalist system – companies will cut corners and will continue to pollute the air and waterways without government oversight and regulation. It's as simple as that. The Sound has clearly been on the mend in recent years. I hope that trend continues.