A first-of-its-kind, large-scale, one day water-testing event took place Wednesday along the Connecticut River and its major tributaries.
Teams of volunteers and professionals in Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire dropped buckets into the river to draw up samples.
For years, a monitoring station at the Connecticut and Massachusetts border has provided information about the amount of nutrient pollution entering Connecticut.
Andrew Fisk, executive director of the Connecticut River Watershed Council, said it's not clear how much comes from each state. "We have to figure out where those nutrients that are crossing the state line are coming from," he said. "Connecticut and New York have, for many years, invested hundreds of millions of dollars to fix wastewater treatment plants, and reduce nutrient pollution significantly. Now the upstream states have to weigh in, and address their share of the problem."
The 11,000 mile Connecticut River basin runs up to Canada, and puts 70 percent of the fresh water into Long Island Sound every day.
