Long Island Sound will get over $100 million from the $1.2 trillion federal infrastructure bill awaiting President Biden’s signature.
The sound will receive the money to help improve water quality, which in turn will help restore habitats and mitigate the impacts of climate change.
Bill Lucey, the Long Island Sound Keeper, said one of the biggest problems over the years has been untreated storm water from towns and cities.
“New London here is a model for the entire state of Connecticut in the way they have been dealing with their storm water — we need that everywhere," Lucey said. "And we need state-of-the-art wastewater treatment systems. So, while we do all this work to clean up the sound, we’re not putting the pollution right back in.”
Connecticut Congressman Joe Courtney said the sound will receive around $106 million to help improve water quality, restore habitats and mitigate the impacts of climate change.
“This is a very busy sound. You know we have a lot of commercial boat traffic. We have a lot of economic activity in the coast, commercial fisherman, obviously the shipyard up in Groton. What this funding is about is allowing all that activity to co-exist with water quality and strengthening the environment in this region,” Courtney said.
The money will be split between Connecticut and New York with an emphasis on cleaning up storm water, which drains damaging pollutants into the sound.
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