Projects

To support recruitment and training for residents in each of the river municipalities to become advocates on behalf of the Quinnipiac River in order to participate in public meetings on the upcoming Quinnipiac Watershed Action Plan Update of 2012 and to support the completion of the Lower Quinnipiac River Canoeable Trail and the Town of North Haven canoe launch to access the new trail.

To support The Friends of the Quinnipiac Project to remedy the effects of poor land use practiced by managers and owners of riparian properties through outreach, education, training, public recognition and technical assistance.

Funds are requested to support organization and implementation of outreach and advocacy for the Quinnipiac Watershed Stream Buffer Initiative (Phase II) and regular grassroots events.

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 continue to work on scientifically validated Stream Team assessment program, to redesign the program to use a larger poll of personnel who will learn to perform rapid assessment  in the field to collect baseline and annual data, develop a bioassessment protocol for the salt marsh in the lower river that can be performed by teams, and enlarge citizen "eyes on the river," the Adopt-the-River program, but reorganizing adopters so that they are convened together at least once per year to learn skills of river protection and restoration and to report progress to officials.

To continue to develop the Stream Team volunteer water quality monitoring programs as a force for river conservation, and to further analyze data collected in both 1998-1999 grant years.

To start an "Adopt the River" program and to continue a lecture series.