Conte Corner: Celebrating Trees

As spring arrives, we’re celebrating trees and their important—and complex—role in preserving the Connecticut River Watershed.

Cymbella Cistula

While many are familiar with the fish and wildlife that define our landscapes, there are other lesser-known critters that play a role in creating and maintaining a healthy ecosystem.

Migrating Under a Microscope

Since their arrival in the 1600s, New Englanders have constructed fishways to help fish pass over small dams and barriers, but the early designs were rudimentary, often just a constructed gap.

The Land and Water Conservation Fund Matters

The value of open land accessible to all of us has never been clearer: as the pandemic has shown, available, safe outdoor spaces are critical to our overall health and happiness.

Spice up Your Home Landscape

Unfortunately, finding the right native shrub can be daunting, and the offerings from the easy-to-find places, such as the local grocery store or big box hardware stores, have a limited menu, most of which are non-native and too many of which are invasive.

Wild and Scenic

Tucked away in the Northwest corner of Connecticut flows a river that once was deemed “unsuitable and undrinkable.” Remarkably, this same waterway, the Farmington River, today provides a major recreational paradise, one of the top trout fishing rivers in New England, and clean drinking water for nearly one million people in Hartford County.

Thermal Refuges

The tall mountains of the Pacific Northwest usually gather a lot of snow that typically lasts through the summer. The snowmelt provides a reliable source of cool water that descends the rivers, supporting salmon and trout populations. In the Connecticut River watershed, the pattern is different.

Conte Corner- Friends of Conte

Each spring when the light returns and the crocuses bloom is an important time for the Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge: the Congressional Appropriations process.

Making the Grade

More than 200 colored circles freckle the coastline of Long Island Sound on a digital map. Peter Linderoth, director of water quality for Save the Sound, calls them “Skittles,” but instead of candy flavors, this colorful assortment represents grades.

Below the Surface- Rivers Have Mussels, Too!

Along the seashore we’re familiar with ribbed mussels and blue mussels (which make a delicious meal), but unlike these saltwater mussels, the freshwater cousins do not taste good nor do they form large rafts or adhere to hard substrate like dock piers and rocks.

Conte Corner: New Column Starts with Summer Issue

Through the Conte Corner the authors hope to bring to life how laws, policies, and funding, in DC and locally, make a difference to the watershed, the Conte Refuge, and you and me: the people who live, work, and play here.

Below the Surface- Behold the Mighty Minnow

It seemed like just another spring day when we stopped at the Salmon River, a tidewater tributary of the Connecticut River that splits the towns of Haddam and East Haddam, Connecticut.