Protecting Long Island Sound estuary is goal of federal grants

The tidal marshes of Sunken Meadow State Park once provided inviting habitat for salt marsh sparrows, small birds that nest among the coastal grasses just above the high tide line.

But over the years, a series of misguided human interventions blocked the ebb and flow of tides, turning a flourishing ecosystem into a mostly barren mudflat. The sparrows, along with most other flora and fauna, gradually disappeared. 

More recently, Save the Sound and the Audubon Society have been restoring parts of the 400-acre wetland and now, Audubon has received a $1.5 million federal grant to continue repairing the marsh, adding sediments to raise the level of the marsh and provide higher and safer nesting sites for the sparrows. Egrets and osprey have already returned; the hope is that the sparrows, which have been proposed for listing under the Endangered Species Act, will find their way back as well.

The Sunken Meadow restoration is one of 36 projects aimed at improving water quality and restoring habitat in and around Long Island Sound that will receive funding from the federal government.

"The grants will prevent over 600,000 gallons of stormwater runoff and approximately 3,000 pounds of nitrogen pollution from entering the Sound," Amanda Bassow, director of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s Northeast regional office, said in a Zoom call Tuesday announcing the grants. "They'll also remove almost 160,000 pounds of marine debris, plant almost 2,000 trees and restore 70 acres of coastal habitats."

The projects will be funded by more than $11 million in grants from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the Environmental Protection Agency and Long Island Sound Partnership, a collaboration between federal and state agencies, nonprofit organizations and researchers.

An additional $320,000 was raised from private foundations and $8.5 million in matching funds from the recipient organizations, for a total of more than $20 million earmarked for preserving the biologically diverse estuary.

The Long Island Sound watershed stretches across five states, from Vermont to New York, encompassing dense forests and densely populated suburban precincts. The more populated and developed areas pose challenges for local waterways, such as polluted runoff from paved streets and excess nitrogen from lawn fertilizer and septic systems.

Since the Partnership was founded in 1985 as Long Island Sound Study, its projects have prevented 130,000 pounds of nitrogen from entering the Sound, restored 862 acres of wildlife habitat and treated 212 million gallons of stormwater pollution, according to Julia Socrates, the assistant director of marine resources for the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

This year, 18 grants of $6.6 million were awarded to groups based in New York, "from Westchester County, the Bronx, Queens, and through Suffolk County all the way out to Fisher Island," Socrates said during the announcement. 

"The impact is tremendous," Denise Stranko, head of federal policy at Save the Sound, which received grants for two projects, said in an interview with Newsday. "We couldn't do all of the incredible work that we're doing, with partners across the region, if it wasn't for the funding coming from Long Island Sound Partnership."

These projects are getting underway at a precarious moment for America’s fresh- and saltwater ecosystems. In the past 11 months, the Trump administration has proposed dozens of measures that would remove federal protection from wetlands across the country and from habitats that shelter endangered species. EPA's administrator for New England, Mark Sanborn, was asked about the apparent disconnect during the announcement, but he had logged off the call. 

Other recipients include the Henry Ferguson Museum on Fishers Island for controlled burns to restore coastal habitat; the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Nassau County for oyster restoration in Manhasset Bay; the Research Foundation of SUNY for installing a series of biofilters in Suffolk County to mitigate nitrogen pollution; the Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk for removing abandoned fishing gear in the Sound; the University of Connecticut for protecting common and roseate terns on Great Gull Island from invasive predators and plants; ReWild Long Island for planting and maintaining native plant gardens; and the Town of Brookhaven for installing wildlife tunnels for diamondback terrapins.

Projects in New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Vermont received support as well.