What the 2024 Save the Sound Report Card Means for Lower Fairfield County
Check out Save the Sound's grades for water quality in Stamford, Norwalk, Bridgeport, and the surrounding areas.
The Long Island Sound is an essential part of southwest Connecticut. It’s a source of recreation for residents, a hub for water-related businesses, and a home to many fish, shellfish, and plants. More than nine million people live around its banks between Connecticut and New York, making it a community connector, economic engine, and vital part of the region.
That’s why nonprofits like Save the Sound, a regional environmental organization, are focused on keeping its waters as clean as possible, for both humans and the plant and fish ecosystems within it.
In its 2024 report card, which graded the open waters and bays for water quality for local ecosystems (as opposed to its beach grades, which focus on water quality for swimmers), the nonprofit found that more than 98% of open waters of Long Island Sound earned a grade of B or higher, even in more populated areas, like around Stamford and Greenwich.
However, looking at the bays, which include places like Norwalk Harbor, 42% of the 57 bays and bay segments along the Sound earned a C or below, even in areas where the open water close by received high marks.
“It’s clear that past investment in nitrogen pollution reduction from wastewater infrastructure is linked to improving the open waters of Long Island Sound,” David Ansel, vice president of water protection for Save the Sound, said in a statement. “Now, our challenge is to find the political will to extend and expand this investment.”
Elected officials said they believe supporting the health of the Long Island Sound is important to the region.
“This year’s Report Card proves that investing in Long Island Sound is paying off, but there is much work left to do,” Senator Richard Blumenthal said in a statement. “As pollution and climate change continue to pose a grave threat to the Sound, we need strong federal investments to keep it clean, healthy, and resilient for generations to come.”
The report cautioned that while overall water quality has been trending in the right direction, warming waters caused by climate change could undo some of those efforts.
“If we do not act, climate change impacts—including rising water temperatures and changes in storm frequency and intensity in the Sound—threaten to erase our hard-won gains,” Ansel said. “Already, lingering poor water quality in area bays and open waters near population centers signals that more must be done.”
What’s in the Save the Sound Grades?
In order to measure the water quality in both the open waters and the bays, the nonprofit looks at a variety of indicators. For the open waters, those include:
- Dissolved organic carbon: serves as an indicator of human impacts on the water
- Dissolved oxygen: lower levels of this impact marine life, with very low levels causing death of marine ecosystems
- Chlorophyll a: measures the amount of phytoplankton in the water. High levels of phytoplankton and algae “can cause aesthetic problems such as green scums and bad odors, and can result in decreased levels of dissolved oxygen,” according to the EPA.
- Water clarity: measures how far light penetrates the water, which helps allow fish to find food and plants to thrive.
For bays, the nonprofit and its partner organizations measure levels of dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll a, and water clarity, as well as:
- Seaweeds: too much seaweed can be harmful to environmental health and can serve as an indicator of excess nitrogen pollution.
- Oxygen saturation: ideally healthy water should have the same level of oxygen as the air. If the levels are different—either higher or lower—that can indicate water quality issues.
What Are the Save the Sound Grades for Southwest Connecticut?
Southwest Connecticut communities fall in two sections of the Long Island Sound waters—the Western Basin, which includes Bridgeport, Fairfield, Westport, and Norwalk, and the Eastern Narrows, which include Darien, Stamford, and Greenwich.
For open waters, the Western Basin received A- for its waters. However, it received a C for dissolved oxygen, which the report noted showed “the continued need for improvement in a vital environmental indicator,” as well as “signs of human impact.” Meanwhile, the Eastern Narrows received a B for its water quality—an improvement from the last report. The area received a D- for its dissolved oxygen, its lowest scoring indicator, which the report noted showed the waters included a “stressed aquatic environment in need of continued measures to restore water quality.”
The bays tell a much more varied story. Some bays in our region, like the Outer Norwalk Harbor (which is closest to the open waters of the Sound), received high grades, like an A-, whereas just upstream, the Inner Norwalk Harbor received an F—the same grade as the Inner Bridgeport Harbor.
What Are Communities Doing to Address Low Grades?
Why do some areas score so vastly differently, even if they’re less than a mile apart? Officials with Save the Sound point to very hyperlocal factors that can impact water quality.
For example, three bays in Bridgeport scored a C+ or worse:
- Inner Bridgeport Harbor: F
- Outer Bridgeport Harbor: C+
- Black Rock Harbor: D+
However, the report cited “the continued upgrading of outdated wastewater infrastructure, such as the ambitious plans in motion for the West End Treatment Plant in Bridgeport” as potential solutions to address water quality issues in these areas.
In 2021, the City Council approved an estimated $395 million infrastructure improvement project at the treatment plan. The goal of the improvements is to help reduce the high levels of nitrogen that have been “discharged into Long Island Sound and other waterways,” according to a statement from Save the Sound. The improvements will also increase capacity at the treatment plant from 80 million gallons per day to 200 million gallons per day, which Save the Sound officials said will drastically reduce “the number of bypass events and combined sewer overflows each year due to heavy rainfall.”
However, residents of the P.T. Barnum Apartments, a low-income housing complex in Bridgeport located just blocks from the treatment facility have been advocating for “a construction plan that meets the needs of residents living near the plant and addresses concerns about the poor air quality and foul odors most prevalent during the summer,” according to CT Mirror. The residents said they would like planting of trees, information on air quality, and transparency and communication during construction, CT Mirror reported.
Norwalk, which received an F for its Inner Harbor water quality, was ordered in 2022 by the state to update its wastewater treatment system to avoid dumping raw sewage and under-treated sewage into the Long Island Sound. At the time, Save the Sound officials cited its advocacy as a reason why the state conducted this enforcement.
“We successfully advocated for a requirement that Norwalk monitor the harbor to provide information for the upcoming TMDL. We’ll continue to push DEEP to move forward with the process and finally bring the inner Norwalk Harbor up to Clean Water Act standards,” the group said in a statement.
The consent order requires Norwalk to develop and implement plans to study and remove excess flow from the collection system within 5 years; eliminate an unpermitted emergency overflow outfall within 5 years; and either provide primary treatment to a permitted sewage overflow outfall or eliminate use of that outfall within 10 years.
Save the Sound noted that these efforts should “reduce the discharge of raw sewage into Norwalk’s waterways and should improve water quality in Norwalk Harbor.”
The city’s Water Pollution Control Authority approved a $50 million plan to upgrade its wastewater treatment systems in 2023 and address the issues raised in DEEP’s consent order.
What Can You Do to Help Improve Water Quality in the Sound?
While a lot of work has to be done at the city and state-level to continue to make improvements to the water quality in the Sound, the report lays out a few ways local residents can play their parts.
These include: reducing water usage to lighten the load at water treatment plants, maintain your septic tanks and pipes if you have a private system, reducing your carbon footprint, planting native plants, and eliminating fertilizer usage to reduce chemicals that run off into the Sound. One of the biggest ways residents can get involved, however, is through advocacy—at the local, state, and federal levels to make sure that clean water is a priority.
Senator Chris Murphy highlighted his Long Island Sound Investment Plan 2.0, which calls for millions of dollars in federal funding for programs like water quality monitoring, offshore wind research, resiliency efforts, and infrastructure initiatives, according to reporting from CT Mirror.
“While today’s report card shows important progress, it also serves as a reminder of the challenges ahead,” he said. “I’ve introduced a new plan to help us better fund coastal preservation and water quality improvement efforts, and I will continue to fight as a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee to ensure we have the resources we need to protect the Sound’s future.”
