March 1, 2020

Dear Chairs Kushner and Porter and members of the Labor and Public Employees Committee:

I am writing on behalf of the Watershed Association to request your support for SB 354 An Act Establishing a Green New Deal for CT. Our members and volunteers work to protect water quality and fish and wildlife habitat in the seven-town watershed. The chief source of pollution in our river, which, like 70% of ’s rivers, is classified as impaired, is stormwater runoff. The stronger storms associated with climate change are exacerbating the problem of polluted stormwater runoff affecting our rivers and Long Island .

In addition to also causing erosion and flooding, these storms deplete the tree canopy, which affects air quality and urban heat island effect. Hurricane Sandy, in large part, is responsible for there being only a 15% tree canopy in South Norwalk, one of the lowest in the State. Residents in this neighborhood experience unusually high asthma rates--9.2%, according to census data, versus the national average of 7.7%, according to the CDC. This is also a neighborhood where 85% of children live in poverty, according to the City’s Community Profile on Norwalk, CT’s Young Children: Poverty Rates, Well-being, and School Readiness.

We need solutions to the problems we are seeing in Norwalk: impaired air and water quality, flooding, increasing urban heat island effect. We need o Targets for 100% Clean and Renewable Electricity, Transportation and Buildings o A plan to address environmental equity issues o Good jobs during the transition to clean energy

Many of the good jobs we have in Connecticut depend on a clean and healthy . The oyster industry is a $7 million industry in Norwalk alone. Oysters close to the cannot be harvested for days and sometimes weeks following large storms due to the pollution in stormwater runoff coming down the river and into Norwalk Harbor. For tourism and coastal recreational shell fishing, the problem is more dire. During the rainy summer of 2018, there were fewer than 10 days during which recreational shell fishing was open off the coast of Norwalk and Westport.

Please support this green new deal legislation. Connecticut’s future depends on our taking action now. Thank you for the chance to submit testimony.

Sincerely,

Louise Washer, President Norwalk River Watershed Association PO Box 7114 Wilton, CT 06897

New Canaan, Norwalk, Redding, Ridgefield, Weston, Wilton, Lewisboro NY