Earlier this year, Trust for Public Land (TPL), a national organization that protects undeveloped land, created the Connecticut River Program to improve conservation efforts for the river.

According to TPL, in Connecticut and Massachusetts the major cause of water pollution is sewage runoff from urban areas. This new program will examine the environmental issues affecting the 410-mile river and the 7.2-million-acre watershed of the Connecticut River.

TPL has recently hired Clem Clay as director of the Connecticut River Program to spearhead the program’s conservation work.

Clay studied soil science as an undergraduate at the University of California, Berkeley and holds a master’s degree in public policy from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

“This program focuses on the watershed for [Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire]. In addition to doing new conservation projects in urban and rural communities, we want to work directly with towns to help them with financial aspects and planning,” Clay said.

“We have a state office in Connecticut with a lot of staff both [involved and not involved with watershed in the state]. I’ll be working in coordination with the state’s [office],” Clay said.

Since 1972, TPL has protected more than 1.6 million acres of land in 45 states, including nearly 3,000 in Connecticut.

“In New Hartford we helped [the residents of the city get] a one and a half million dollar initiative for watershed conservation on the ballot in June, which passed. We think that once this type of thing can be put out there, people really understand that it’s a good investment for their city and for themselves,” Clay said.

According to James Sipperly, a planning environmental specialist with the Department of Planning, Conservation and Development of Middletown, local problems with the river have been escalating for years.

“A big problem is the water treatment plant we have here in Middletown. It’s not a new plant, and it has some problems. It puts nitrogen into the river and eventually causes hypoxia. This is why our goal now is to have some of our water purified at nearby treatment plants in Meriden or Cromwell,” Sipperly said.

In addition to the sewage plant, natural erosion of the watershed has caused many problems. According to Sipperly, when there is a significant amount of rainfall over the area, large amounts of salt from the nearby Mattabassett tributary enter the Connecticut River and turn it brown.

Clay said he hopes the Connecticut River Program and TPL will help cities like Middletown to be more successful in the environmental conservation of their own land.

“There’s been a lot effort to reduce erosion,” Sipperly said. “We try to make sure that construction sites here maintain things like silk screening on fences and other preventive measures.”

“We also try to make sure all catch basins are regularly swept of salt and sand during the winter before they wash into the river, because that can also create problems.”

Some Wesleyan students have expressed concern for the present condition of the river.

“We think it’s really important to protect the watershed for not only the students and citizens of Middletown to enjoy, but also to conserve the natural landscape and wildlife of the area,” said CeCe Seiter ’07, a member of Wesleyan’s Environmental Organizer’s Network.

The river also plays a significant role in the daily routine of many students involved in Wesail or the crew team, which use it for practice.

“It smells really bad, and the water is gross…you basically don’t ever want to be in the water,” said Meng Liu ’07, a member of the crew team. “We fell in once, and if we had been upriver closer to the sewage plant, we probably would have gone to the hospital.”

The Connecticut River Program’s conservation efforts will hopefully help diminish future environmental problems with the river.

“TPL’s argument, although we’re certainly not the only ones making it, is that land conservation is a critical tool to combating the negative effects of sprawl,” Clay said. “Permanent protected pieces of land with large environmental value definitely represent a victory that’s going to last.”