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Awards from Rivers Alliance
RIVERS ALLIANCE HONORS DAVID SUTHERLAND
As Its 2009 Environmental Champion
Rivers Alliance has named David Sutherland, Director of Government Relations
for The Nature Conservancy Connecticut Chapter, as environmental champion of the
year. Mr. Sutherland not only has a strong record of accom-plishment as an
environmental advocate, he is exceptionally helpful to his colleagues. He is
perennially one of the first advocates to grasp the details of the state budget
as it develops and as it concludes. Given that the 2009 legislative session was
almost all about the budget, Mr. Sutherland was much in demand. In particular,
he was able to explain the complexities of the budget proposed for the
Department of Environmental Protection, thereby strengthening the testimony of
his many colleagues who sought to minimize cuts to the agency. He also was a
leader in saving the funding that is distributed under the Connecticut Community
Investment Act for open space, farmland, affordable housing, and historic
preservation.

In his nineteen years with The Nature Conservancy, Mr. Sutherland has worked
with colleagues in the Land Conservation Coalition for Connecticut to lobby for
over $350 million in state funds to preserve natural lands across the state. He
has led the Face of Connecticut campaign, which provided a vision and map for
preserving the state’s natural and historic heritage. He has also lobbied for
tax incentives to encourage conservation and laws to ensure the permanence of
conservation restrictions and ownership..
Mr. Sutherland served on the Governor's Stakeholder Dialogue on Climate Change
in 2004, and helped to pass many hope, a model for watersheds under the
stream-flow regulation that the Department of Environmental Protection released
shortly after the celebration. Gov. Rell stressed the significance of the
Shepaug case for all state rivers. She said: In fact, the battle over the
Shepaug River flow was one worth fighting. The issues raised and the resolution
created will resonate beyond just our borders. The case pointed to the important
need for us to properly manage the flow of our rivers and to do it with balance:
balanc-ing our needs for drinking water and recreational use while protecting
our natural resources, legislation implementing the Regional Greenhouse Gas
Initiative in Connecticut and establishing a state task force on the impacts of
climate change. He was appointed by the Speaker of the House to serve on the
Con-necticut Invasive Plants Council.
Rivers Alliance Executive Director Margaret Miner expresses thanks to Mr.
Sutherland and The Nature Conservancy for their collegial assistance on a number
of policy issues. “David has always been exceptionally helpful and gracious. He
never seems to mind explaining the basics.”
At the present time, Rivers Alliance and the Nature Conservancy are leading the
effort to achieve passage of the Department of Environmental Protection’s
proposed streamflow regulation to provide protective standards for all
Connecticut’s stream and rivers. This looks to be the most important and,
unfortunately, contentious issue on the state’s water-policy agenda.
Mr. Sutherland lives in Glastonbury's Kongscut Mountain/Diamond Lake
neighborhood and has a Masters degree in Environmental Studies from Antioch
University.
Rivers Alliance Names Nancy Cohen
Environmental Reporter of the Year
Rivers Alliance of Connecticut has named Nancy Eve Cohen of WNPR and Connecticut
Public Radio as Environmental Reporter of the Year. Ms. Cohen is also Managing
Editor of NPR's Northeast Environmental Hub, which focuses on the natural
resources of the region. Ecological systems do not recognize state borders, and
many environmental issues are common to some or all of the states in the region.
Rivers
Alliance selected Ms. Cohen for its annual award because her work in this state
has provided extraordinary benefits. A good reporter not only reaches the
immediate audience, she enlightens the entire community as that audience
interacts with colleagues, friends, and family.
The award will be presented at the Rivers Alliance Annual Meeting on December 18
in Hartford. Anyone interested in attending should contact the RA office:
rivers@riversalliance.org or 860-361-9349.
Margaret Miner, Executive Director of Rivers Alliance, said, "One reason that
Nancy's stories are so excellent is that behind each feature are many, many
hours of travel, study, and interviews. With her background in politics and
science, she understands all facets of an issue. Also, she's really fair and
really smart."
Eric Hammerling, Rivers Alliance President and Executive Director of Connecticut
Forest and Park Association, remarked, "Nancy has a special talent for finding
interesting individual stories that also explain wider issues. And vice versa.
She can take a concept like river continuity and bring it to life with specific
illustrations. We are lucky to have her on Connecticut Public Radio."
Last summer, Ms. Cohen broadcast environmental stories from Alaska, which
documented effects of global warming on the delicate arctic environment. In
2006, she won an Associated Press Award for her reporting on sewage overflows in
people's basements in Hartford. Her recent feature on the pros and cons of dam
removal in New England dealt deftly with a controversial subject.
Rivers Alliance was founded in 1992 in Collinsville, on the banks of the
Farmington River, and is now in Litchfield, close to the Bantam River. It is the
statewide, non-profit coalition of river organizations, individuals and
businesses formed to protect and enhance Connecticut's waters by promoting sound
water policies, uniting and strengthening the state's many river groups, and
educating the public about the importance of water stewardship.
Ms. Cohen is a graduate of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Her
journalism work has taken her to Cuba (where she recorded an interview with
Castro), Sarajevo (in wartime), Guatemala, and Moscow. She has been an editor on
NPR’s All Things Considered and Morning Edition. Funding for NPR’s Northeast
Environment Hub comes from United Technologies Corporation.
Previous winners of the Rivers Alliance award have been Rep. Tim O’Brien of New
Britain for legislative leadership in protecting drinking water and attorney
Roger Reynolds of Connecticut Fund for the Environment for legal work on
statewide environmental issues.
Ms. Miner concluded, “We have a wealth of talent in Connecticut and outstanding
environmental policies. With the help of people like our awardees, we will reach
our environmental goals.”
ROGER REYNOLDS
ENVIRONMENTAL ATTORNEY OF THE YEAR
I n December, at its annual meeting, Rivers Alliance
was delighted to honor Roger Reynolds, senior staff attorney at Connecticut Fund
for the Environment, as Environmental Attorney of the Year. Mr. Reynolds
has worked with Rivers Alliance and numerous other groups to defend the state’s
most basic environmental laws (the Connecticut Environmental Protection Act and
the Connecticut Environmental Policy Act); to protect prudent water-diversion
policy in general and individual diversion permits; to establish a fair method
of disposing of state “surplus” lands without giving away valuable resources; to
improve sewage treatment; to bolster wetlands protections and so forth.
Meanwhile, he has also done important work on air-quality cases and the
Broadwater project in L.I. Sound. He can master hundreds of details
rapidly, and he is an expert negotiator. Thanks, Roger.
TIM O’BRIEN Environmental Legislator of 2007
Rivers Alliance of Connecticut has named Rep. Tim O’Brien of New Britain as
environmental legislator of 2007. The award was presented on December 19 at the
organization’s annual meeting in Hartford.
Thanks to the courageous leadership of Rep. O’Brien, the legislature, in a
September 2007 special session, repealed a newly passed law that had threatened
the quality of the state’s drinking water supplies.
The threat arose during the 2007 regular session in an eleventh-hour amendment
added to an innocuous bill (Senate bill 1341) that made certain improvements in
the management of water utilities. The amendment overrode state laws protecting
Class I and Class II land in drinkingwater watersheds. (These lands buffer
drinking-water reservoirs and wells.) It was written to allow the New Britain
water utility to lease more than 130 acres of Class I and II land that it owns
in Plainville to the Tilcon company for rock mining.
The advantage to New Britain was that Tilcon reportedly was willing to pay in
the range of $12 million to $15 million for a forty-year lease. The disadvantage
to the residents of Connecticut was that this permission-to-mine would open the
door to similar ventures in some 100,000 acres of drinking water lands that have
been protected under state law for three decades. Connecticut has been, in fact,
a national leader in requiring the conservation of watershed lands as a public
health mandate to maintain the exceptionally high quality of the state’s
drinking water. Rep. O’Brien, who represents the state’s 24th district,
initially supported the mining project, as did the entire New Britain
delegation. As he learned more of the facts and implications of the hurriedly
passed amendment, he took the lead in calling for its repeal.
He and New Britain’s senator, Don DeFronzo, pledged to seek repeal and
eventually persuaded the rest of the delegation to join the cause. Ultimately,
they persuaded Democratic leadership to implement the repeal. Rep. O’Brien’s
willingness to acknowledge an error and to fight to repair the damage has
rescued the state’s commitment to preserving healthy drinking water.
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