NATIONAL HERITAGE CORRIDORIn Touch with The Last Green Valley MEMBER MAGAZINE & 2016 ANNUAL REPORT WATER QUALITY MONITORING VOLUNTEERS Connecting IN ACTION the Drops from Source to Sea Trout in the Balance Access for All Building Bridges by Cleaning Up Water Quality Monitoring Exploring Volunteers OUR NATIONAL In Action RECREATION WATER TRAILS In Touch Spring 2017 IN THIS ISSUE Message from the Chairman .............................1 Connecting Drops • Pg. 2 TLGV Board of Directors and Staff ....................1 Connecting the Drops from Source to Sea.........2 Water Quality Monitoring Volunteers in Action.................................6 Lake Associations Troll For Good Water Quality .................................8 Trout in the Balance ...............................10 Building Soil Health and Improving Water Quality ........................13 Exploring Our National WQM In Action • Pg. 6 Recreation Water Trails .........................14 Access for All .........................................16 Business Partner Spotlight: Lakeview Marine ...................................18 2016 By the Numbers .....................................19 Building Bridges by Cleaning Up .................... 20 Spring Outdoors in The Last Green Valley ........22 Telling Stories that Matter ...............................23 From Farm to Table – Tastes of the Valley ........24 Lake Association • Pg. 8 Volunteer Spotlight: Nancy Polydys .................25 TLGV Annual Meeting .....................................26 Do You Walktober? ..........................................27 2016 Financial Report .....................................28 Trout • Pg. 10 Thank you to our Members, Donors, Sponsors and Partners .....................................29 In Touch is published twice a year by The Last Green Valley P.O. Box 29, 203B Main Street Danielson, CT 06239-0029 P.O. Box 186, Southbridge, MA 01550 860-774-3300 • 860-774-8543 fax Email: [email protected] www.thelastgreenvalley.org Access • Pg. 16 Copyright 2016 The Last Green Valley, Inc. Contributing Writer Fran Kefalas Design by Angell House Design Printed by The Pyne-Davidson Company on recycled paper with soy-based inks. Cover: Glenn Krevosky holding a white sucker during their annual spawning run in the French River, N. Oxford, MA. Photo credit M. Fugatt-Krevosky. Water Trails • Pg. 14 Building Bridges • Pg. 20 Message from the Chairman Welcome to the third edition of Valley Legacy Society for anyone representatives from the funds your member magazine, In Touch, who wishes to benefit The Last directly, to learn more about them. which also serves as our Annual Green Valley in his or her will or We did not do any of these things Report for 2016. estate plans, no matter the size or alone. To all of our members, simplicity of the bequest. A legacy 2016 marked another successful donors, sponsors, volunteers and gift is a thoughtful way to ensure year for The Last Green Valley, partners, thank you! Your support that all the things you love about Inc. (TLGV), and we are pleased to makes our programming possible The Last Green Valley live on. We share our accomplishments with and improves the quality of life in hope that if your bequest plans you through the pages of In Touch. our communities. Your support for include The Last Green Valley, you With your help, we have continued our new endowment funds will will let us know so we can add your to focus our resources on what we ensure that we remain a uniquely name to the list. You can remain do best – connecting and inspiring rural, historic, and thriving region anonymous if you wish, or you people to care for, enjoy, and pass for generations to come. may let us publicize your name to on The Last Green Valley National inspire others. We work for you in the National Heritage Corridor. Heritage Corridor, and we not only Second, we have made it easier We hope you enjoy this issue’s focus value your support, but your input. If for you to participate in the long- on our watershed, with stories you have any comments, questions, term impact of this organization by ranging from brook trout restoration or concerns, or would just like to ensuring that any bequest or gift efforts to our new National chat about our work, please contact you make will benefit this region Recreation Water Trail designation Lois Bruinooge or me through the into the future. We partnered with for the Shetucket River. Perhaps these office at 860-774-3300. the Greater Worcester Community articles will inspire you to become a Foundation and the Community We look forward to connecting and water quality monitoring volunteer Foundation of Eastern Connecticut inspiring even more people in 2017. or to join us on a paddle. There is no to establish two endowment funds Together, we can care for, enjoy, better way to understand the issues in our name. These funds will and pass on The Last Green Valley in our watershed than by getting perpetuate our vision, increase National Heritage Corridor! your feet wet. our visibility and capacity to Behind the scenes, we have worked secure major gifts, and allow us hard to ensure the sustainability of to obtain high quality investment this organization into the future. management services. We invite Bill Jobbagy, Chairman First, we established The Last Green you to contact us, or contact Board of Directors TLGV Board of Directors 2016-2017 TLGV Staff Bill Jobbagy, Chairman, Coventry, CT Ed Hood, Sturbridge, MA Lois Bruinooge, Executive Director Mike Nelson, Vice Chairman, Norwich, CT Jennifer Kaufman, Mansfield, CT Marcy Dawley, Project Administrator Myra Ambrogi, Secretary, Plainfield, CT Marty Nieski, Dudley, MA and Lead Ranger Thomas Dufresne, Treasurer Wayde Schmidt, Pomfret, CT LyAnn Graff, Office Coordinator Southbridge, MA Joan St. Ament, Woodstock, CT Bill Reid, Chief Ranger Donna Baron, Lebanon, CT Eric Thomas, Coventry, CT, representing Sharon Wakely, Finance Administrator Janet Blanchette, Thompson, CT the Governor of Connecticut PROGRAM CONSUltants Elsie Bisset, Voluntown, CT Mark Winne, Charlton, MA Christine Armstrong Debra Burns, Putnam, CT Education Outreach Coordinator Mary Ellen Ellsworth, Eastford, CT Liz Ellsworth James Gothreau, Putnam, CT Education Outreach Assistant Rick Hermonot, Sterling, CT Jean Pillo, Water Quality Monitoring and TRBP Coordinator 1 Сonnecting the Drps J. Pillo 2 A. Dabrowski from Source to Sea Water made The Last Green Valley Ziggy Waraszkiewicz of Charlton special. It cut its way through rocks said he has come to realize through and forests and valleys, carving out his water quality testing efforts babbling brooks, swift streams and just how connected the watershed powerful rivers that became the really is. “I like to take a map of economic engines of the colonies The Last Green Valley and I circle and the nation all the way into the where we are up in Charlton and mid-1900s. then I point to Long Island Sound. What we do up here in Charlton While the National Heritage ends up in Long Island Sound. Corridor’s waters power very little People don’t think about it, but industry today, they are still the ar- once you see it, it changes how you teries pumping life throughout the look at the water.” region, a fact recognized by The Last Green Valley for more than a Because of that interconnectedness, decade. Conservation of natural water quality monitoring is resources has been a mission of the critical, Pillo said. In some ways the National Heritage Corridor since it challenges faced by the waterways was designated in 1994.The focus today are more complex than on water blossomed in 2006 when they were decades ago, before the Corridor hired Jean Pillo and the Clean Water Act of 1972. “The began partnering with the Eastern Willimantic River used to turn Connecticut Conservation District colors depending on the dye being to oversee water quality monitor- used at the textile mills,” Pillo said. ing programs. In that first year, 8 “That river is a great success story.” sites along the French River where Chris Bellucci, an environmental tested for water quality. In 2016, analyst with the Connecticut 71 sites on streams and multiple Department of Energy and sites on 7 lakes were monitored. Environmental Protection, said In 2009, Bill Reid, TLGV’s chief when industrial sources were ranger, led TLGV’s effort to partner causing visible pollution of the with a number of organizations rivers, everyone could see the to create Source to Sea, where problems and understood where volunteers paddled virtually the the sources of the problems were. entire Thames River watershed. “We don’t have problems with The project was meant to highlight rivers turning purple or green both the recreational opportuni- anymore, but in a sense it’s more of ties and the interconnectedness of a challenge. It’s the stuff you can’t J. Pillo the watershed. see that is causing the troubles we have. It’s more nonpoint source Clockwise from left: Pillo said the average person really pollution. We have to find the Paddling the Quinebaug does not think about the watershed. problems and then figure out River; Woodstock Everything from how the water gets where they are coming from.” Academy teachers in their wells, to what happens to Lauren Cremers and the waste they put into their septic Bellucci notes that the current era Susan Lovejoy search for systems is a mystery. The water requires strong volunteer programs, pollution-sensitive bugs in the Yantic River; and quality monitoring program is part such as the one Pillo and TLGV run. a “most-wanted” roach- of a multi-pronged approach to like stonefly found in a change that. Chaplin stream. 3 "WE HAVE A REALLY NICE RIVER AND IT’S UNDER-UTILIZED. WE WANT TO GET PEOPLE OUT THERE ON IT. IF WE GET THEM ON THE WATER, THEY WILL BECOME INVESTED IN IT.” Neal Hagstrom, a fisheries biologist with the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection J. Pillo “The Last Green Valley provides us Pillo said she also is closely watching Last Green Valley. It’s an hour from with really good information.