What better way to begin the day than with an early morning paddle or boat ride! This is exactly what our staff in Stonington and New London are doing to test the water quality of Long Island Sound (LIS) in Stonington Harbor and Alewife Cove. Save the Sound is a nonprofit that protects Connecticut and the greater Long Island Sound environments. Every year, Save the Sound collects data for their Unified Water Study to take a closer look at the health of Long Island Sound.

NESS has been a part of the Unified Water Study since 2018. In Stonington Harbor we measure three stations in the upper harbor (above the train tracks), and 5 stations in the outer harbor. These stations are accessed by power boat. At Alewife Cove in New London, we measure four stations, and these stations are accessed by kayak. We must measure within three hours of sunrise, so our mornings are very early, but as you can see by the pictures, we have fun anyway!

The Unified Water Study (UWS) is designed to measure human impact on, and the relative environmental health of Long Island Sound embayments. What is an embayment? An embayment is a recess in the shoreline. These watersheds include harbors, rivers, coves, bays, creeks, brooks, inlets, cuts, and others. The findings from this study will further our understanding of the Sound and inform and support our actions to preserve and protect it.

 

 

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A PART OF THE UWS?

As part of the UWS, we have received equipment on loan that will allow us to collect data about a variety of water quality parameters associated with eutrophication within and adjacent to embayments in Stonington and Alewife Cove in New London. The parameters we will be monitoring are dissolved oxygen, conductivity (salinity) chlorophyll a, temperature, turbidity, and qualitative macrophyte assessments. As NESS’s Director of Stonington Programs Mary Ann Horrigan explains, “we are honored to be joining a network of likeminded steward organizations across NY and CT that are working together to learn more and support Long Island Sound.”

WHY DO WE NEED THE UWS?

Despite three decades of effort to improve water quality, Long Island Sound remains a severely stressed environment. In the western sound (from Greenwich to Nassau County) dissolved oxygen concentrations—a key measure of the Sound’s health—consistently fall to levels too low to support wildlife. In 2017 Save the Sound (a bi-state program that is part of the Connecticut Fund for the Environment) launched the UWS. While the pollution in the open Sound has been monitored for decades, the condition of the bays and harbors (where most of the public comes into contact with Long Island sound) can be dramatically different that the open Sound.

Typically, it is hard to compare water quality conditions in the Sound’s many embayments since the monitoring work in these embayments is usually conducted by different groups using different methods. The water quality monitoring protocol developed by the UWS allows groups along Long Island Sound to collect comparable data on the environmental health of the Sound’s embayments.

WHY SHOULD WE STUDY THE SOUND?

It is hard to determine the health of LIS, because it covers such a large area of water and different groups have different methods to test water quality conditions. The Unified Water Study (UWS) was created so that groups around LIS can compare data on the environmental health of the bays and harbors of the Sound. This project started in 2017 and will help increase the data available to assess LIS’s water quality. This can help us understand the Sound and what we need to do to keep it working as it should!

WHO HELPS COLLECT DATA?

Save the Sound provided local monitoring groups, such as NESS, with monitoring equipment, training, custom study designs based on their location, and other resources needed. With these tools, we were able to determine dissolved oxygen, water clarity, temperature, salinity, among other measures of quality. We took samples from multiple spots in the Cove and the Harbor to make sure we had a good baseline assessment of each location. We look forward to seeing the results of this year’s study!

Thank you to Save our Sound for letting us help and shout out to our NESS staff who volunteered to do some early morning sampling! We do what we can to keep our waters healthy, so we can continue all our great on the water programs!

“Participating in the Unified Water Study is a great way for NESS to contribute to important scientific research, be stewards of our environment, and engage students and AmeriCorps members on water quality monitoring techniques. Personally, I love doing UWS because I am able to see trends in how Stonington Harbor and Alewife Cove change throughout the year, which is really interesting to me. Being out on the water at sunrise is so beautiful too!” – Moana

“I would say that one of the best parts about participating in the Unified Water Study is getting out on the water for sunrise is so peaceful. The water is almost always calm like glass and the way the colors of the sunrise reflect on the water is so incredibly beautiful it is hard to put it into words. I had the opportunity to participate in UWS twice this past week. On Wednesday, we went out on kayaks at Alewife Cove in New London to do our testing and then I went out again on Friday around Stonington Harbor. Both times were so fun, and I really think that waking up and getting to work before everyone else is truly a bonding experience for those at UWS. Also, by collecting our data, we become more connected to our local waters and more deeply understand the aquatic ecosystem that we utilize every day for our programs with our students. It shows that we care about The Sound and are not just only using it for our own benefit!” – Luna

WANT TO GET INVOLVED?

If you are supporting or joining this NESS stewardship initiative, please email Megan Strand (mstrand@nessf.org).

For more information about the UWS and Save our Sound, visit http://www.ctenvironment.org/what-we-do/saving-sound-rivers/measuring-water-quality/unified-water-study/.