Projects

To support the work of the Freedom Lawn Campaign to educate users of 'traditional'  chemical lawn care about the harmful environmental and health effects of pesticides and fertilizers, and encourage a switch to organic lawn care methods that are safe for the natural environment and people.

To support the grassroots organization identified in the Quinnipac Watershed Action Plan and continue to organize volunteers toward implementaing the plan's actions.  To harness the combined efforts of a large pool of citizen volunteers, clubs, civic roups, shcools and businesses, which hav eparticipated at least one year in a QRWA river activity.  To use our conservation, recreation and education events and programs to increase our volunteer ranks.  To continue to train and guide these volunteers toward reducing the point source and nonpoint source pollution that enters our waterways.  These volunteers will educate landowners and builders whose activities have a direct impact on water quality and habitat health in tributaries and main rivers.

To support the annual monitoring, education, advocacy, public access and restoration activities as well as expanding grassroots organizing to continue with clean up activities in the Quinnipiac Rive Watershed Action Plan.

To fund the protection of the Heminway Creek, a tributary of the Quinnipiac River through the purchase of wetlands.

To support the production of a student lead project of internet based-handheld computer field guides resources for the Quinnipiac River that calculates water quality data, geology, oysters, plants, macro-invertabrates, birds and oystering history.

To continue monitoring vegetation change and mudflat development in the Quinnipiac River brackish marshes, and begin to test hypothesized causes for the observed wetland loss.  To complete a nitrogen and trace metal analyses and begin to assess how marsh loss has affected the load of pollutants to the river.

To offer a short course in river processes to local environmental activist and municipal officials.  The course will cover the basic hydrologic, geomorphic, chemical and biological processes that govern stream ecosystems and how they are perturbed by human activities. Participants will receive the scientific tools that they need in order to understand and critically evaluate environmental data on the Quinnipiac River.

To test various water quality parameters and assess the condition of the Hemingway Creek, a tributary of the Quinnipiac River which borders one of our preserves.

To educate the community about the effects of pollution, to increase access to the Quinnipiac River, to empower the residents to right environmental wrongs and to enhance appreciation for parkland and its preservation.

To offer a 2-day short course in river processes to local environmental activists and municipal officials.  The course will cover the basic hydrologic, geomorphic, chemical, and biological processes that govern stream ecosystems, and how they are perturbed by human activity.  Participants will receive the scientific tools that they need in order to understand and critically evaluate environmental data on the Quinnpiac River.