Save the Sound

Our organization has four strategic goals:
1. Our rivers, lakes and Long Island Sound are restored.
2. Natural areas are protected and support wildlife, clean water and recreation.
3. Connecticut’s communities are healthy and energy-efficient.
4. The ability of citizens to protect our natural resources and public health remains strong.

We tackle issues that require legal, scientific and coalition-building expertise as well as outreach, advocacy and citizen engagement. Many of the issues we take on typically take years rather than months to resolve. We're known for our innovative solutions, collaborative achievements, solid science, committed advocacy and, when necessary, strategic litigation.

Our staff of 33 individuals has a broad range of skills, including legal and administrative advocacy, engineering and project management. Our "toolbox" includes the law, policy development, and communications (including social media), We also develop, raise money for, and manage "green projects," including marsh restoration, dam removals, river restoration and green infrastructure project, such as rain gardens, bioswales and permeable pavements. We work with many partners, including local, state and federal officials, community groups, other environmental organizations and nonprofits, and 2500 volunteers. We work with our 5,000 members and 2500 volunteers.

Fighting Climate Change and Protecting Clean Air
We’re living in a time of climate destabilization: historic heat waves and droughts, bizarre cold snaps that disrupt farming, and massive hurricanes that produce destructive flooding and drive people from their homes. Despite these recurring crises, our federal government appointed an EPA administrator with the explicit mission of dismantling policies and programs instituted to reduce fossil fuel use and build a renewable and sustainable future. Save the Sound is waging legal battles to halt this anti-climate agenda and fighting ill-advised pollution-producing projects at the local level.

Protecting the region's land, air, and water takes constant vigilance at both the Connecticut and New York legislatures. That is where laws that clean up Long Island Sound and our rivers are made. It’s where companies trying to mine on the lands that clean your drinking water are stopped. And it is where the line to protect our planet’s climate is drawn. Save the Sound’s lawyers and advocates work with legislators, draft bills, and fight for laws that will make a difference to your family’s health and the environment you love. Here is a sampling of our victories over the years.

Through our Ecological Restoration projects, we remove outmoded dams that harm wildlife and cause flooding. An example is our project at Rocky Neck State Park in Connecticut. Until the 1970s, around 250,000 alewife traveled upstream through Bride Brook in East Lyme each year. But narrow culverts that restricted tidal flow to the upstream marsh dropped that number to 80,000. Save the Sound replaced the collapsing metal culverts with a larger, concrete box culvert in 2010—restoring five river miles, five dune acres, 72 lake acres, and 81 marsh acres. Volunteers planted thousands of dune grass shoots and 100 native shrubs around the stream’s mouth to restore damaged dunes. The following year, the alewife run more than doubled and in 2017, 386,000 alewives passed through Bride Brook. Restoring active tidal flow to the marsh also improved water quality, plant health, and conditions for birds, and the revitalized environment has increased tourism.

Another example is our restoration work at Sunken Meadow State Park in New York--enjoyed by two million visitors each year, and home to 80 acres of salt marsh and 55 acres of tidal creek and marsh, as well as coastal forest, dunes, and beach. We worked with volunteers to plant native marsh plants and prevent stormwater runoff from the park’s parking lots. The free-flowing tidal creek and healthy salt marsh are already attracting a diversity of fish and migratory birds. See more accomplishments at our Impact Map: https://www.savethesound.org/about-us/impact-map/