Statement of
The Honorable James L. Oberstar
Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment
Hearing On
“Protecting and Restoring America’s Great Waters:
The Long Island Sound”
October 6, 2009
Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, for holding today’s hearing on efforts to restore one of America’s great waters – the Long Island Sound. The Long Island Sound, fed by tributaries of New York, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts, is one of America’s great water bodies. Nestled between coastal Connecticut and the northern shores of Long Island, the Sound is a place of recreation for the 20 million individuals that live within 50 miles, as well as a center of recreational and commercial fishing from many of its seaports and harbors.
The Sound, sadly like many of its estuarine brethren, also serves another role: as the terminal outfall for the collective stormwater and wastewater systems of the associated watershed. The Long Island Sound distinguishes itself from many other estuaries in that its impairments are primarily dominated by urban inputs. Where a watershed like the Chesapeake Bay is impaired due to a whole host of factors – agricultural, urban and suburban runoff, and wastewater – the Sound’s impairments are much due to the highly populated urban centers that ring the Sound. As such, remedies and approaches for restoring the Sound must be cognizant of, and applicable for this specific estuary.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, in close tandem with the States of New York and Connecticut has already started down this path of region-specific solutions towards restoring the Sound. In 1994, the Long Island Sound Study National Estuary Program formally submitted its collaborative management plan. The importance of this effort was underscored earlier this decade when Congress enacted Section 119 of the Clean Water Act, authorizing a Long Island Sound program. The authorization for this program expires in 2010. We as a Committee now have an opportunity to determine what has worked in the implementation of Sections 320 and 119, and to build upon successes. And we must continue forward as the sad facts remain that the waters of Long Island Sound are warming, that its valuable lobster populations continue to decline, and that hypoxia has yet to fully unclench its suffocating grasp.
A new concern facing the Long Island Sound is the impact of climate change. As with many elements of global warming, the impacts are multi-faceted. In an immediate sense, the sea temperature of the Sound increased by an average of 2 degrees Fahrenheit between 1972 and 2002. This warming not only impacts the aquatic ecosystems of the Sound, but it also can result in an increased propensity towards hypoxic conditions. Climate change, too, can also result in increased sea level rise. Sea level rise will not only overcome coastal habitats, but it will result in salt water intrusion that will affect drinking water supplies, and will also threaten our precious coastal infrastructure: ports, roads, and water treatment facilities. The Long Island Sound Study is one of a handful of estuaries chosen by EPA to be part of their Climate Ready Estuary Program. I am interested in learning more about the results of this initiative to determine whether its lessons should be more broadly applied.
The Sound’s fish and shellfish populations continue to be under threat. In the early 1980s, recreational fishing landed more than one million winter flounder, but in 2007 only 5,000 of the fish were caught and kept. And very importantly for both the culture and economy of the region, the population of lobsters has seen precipitous declines. In 1997, the harvest was worth $40 million to the region. Two years later, in 1999, the catch had declined to $7 million and has seen little recovery since then. In actuality it is likely that a number of factors are involved with the collapse of the Sound’s lobster fishery. That said, one of the central aims in restoring this once verdant estuary is to restore water quality – a central condition for a healthy ecosystem.
While hypoxic conditions have improved in the Sound, it remains the central water quality impairment issue. While some nitrogen run-off occurs naturally, human activities in the watershed account for an estimated 400% increase over natural nitrogen loadings. These nutrient loadings are largely a product of the massive amounts of nitrogen flushed into the system via stormwater outfalls and through wastewater facility discharges. Excess nitrogen loadings also occur through the process of atmospheric deposition. Conditions in the Sound have improved as a result of steps taken by the EPA and the States of New York and Connecticut. But there is no doubt that hypoxia remains the major issue in the Sound. In 2007, hypoxia lasted 58 days at its peak, and affected 162 square miles, an area that is four times the size of Manhattan.
Reauthorizing Section 119 of the Clean Water Act presents an opportunity for this Committee and the Congress. Of course, the immediate goal of the reauthorization will be to restore, and then protect, the Long Island Sound. But the reauthorization of this regional program also offers us an opportunity to experiment with new approaches to water quality protection and watershed and estuarine restoration. Through its Nitrogen Credit Exchange program, the State of Connecticut has dramatically reduced nitrogen loadings into the Sound, on schedule, and for a cost-savings of millions of dollars. The State of New York also has an innovative approach to reducing nutrient discharges from its wastewater treatment facilities. We need to look at these programs and replicate what works – and take advantage of this time to make improvements. As I noted earlier, urban and suburban stormwater is one of the greatest drivers for estuary impairment in the region. We need new approaches for effectively tackling – in a cost-effective manner – these widespread sources of pollution.
Today’s hearing sets the stage for the resuscitation of the Sound. I look forward to today’s testimony and suggestions for improving a program that is on its way to a successful consummation.
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Statement of
The Honorable Eddie Bernice Johnson
Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment
Hearing On
“Protecting and Restoring America’s Great Waters:
The Long Island Sound”
October 6, 2009
Today’s hearing will focus on the current state of the Long Island Sound, and ways to strengthen federal programs to address continuing impairments to the Sound. I expect that today’s hearing will help this Subcommittee in efforts to reauthorize the Clean Water Act’s Section 119 Long Island Sound Study program.
The Long Island Sound is one of the nation’s largest and diverse estuaries, home to many types of fish and wildlife, including oysters, lobsters, and over 120 species of fish. The Sound is also an incredibly important economic driver for the region, bringing in an estimated $5.5 billion annually. For the more than 20 million people who live within 50 miles of its waters, the Sound provides a robust commercial fishing industry as well as a popular destination for recreational boating, fishing, and swimming.
However, the Long Island Sound suffers from impairment. Every summer, the Sound experiences harmful algal blooms. These create large “dead zones” that starve the Sound’s plant and animal life of the oxygen they need to survive. In 2007, the area of the dead zone was four times the size of Manhattan. The “dead zone” in the Sound is caused by excess loads of nitrogen, a nutrient that fertilizes the waters and causes the growth of excess algae. The majority of nitrogen loadings come from wastewater treatment plants located within the Sound’s watershed, which stretches upstream all the way to Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont.
But these wastewater treatment plants are not the whole picture in terms of nitrogen pollution in the Sound. Urban runoff is a large, and growing, contributor of nitrogen and other pollutants to the Sound. The Long Island Sound is located in one of the most densely urbanized areas of the country. More than 20 percent of the land in the Long Island Sound Study area is currently developed. Developed land creates impervious surfaces, such as roads, bridges, and buildings, which do not allow for infiltration of precipitation into the soil. Instead, precipitation runs off of these surfaces and into streams or storm drains, picking up pollutants such as fertilizers, heavy metals, and pathogens with it.
And there are other major sources of nitrogen to the Sound that must still be addressed. These include atmospheric deposition, combined sewer overflows, and agricultural runoff. One damaging result of the “dead zone” in the Sound is the loss of eelgrass, which is essential habitat for many types of fish in the Sound. Eelgrass in the western Sound has virtually disappeared. These conditions were also determined to have contributed to the massive lobster die-off that took place in 1999, which decimated the Sound’s lobster population and the regional lobster industry. As a result, annual lobster catches of seven to twelve million pounds were reduced to less than one million pounds.
The Sound also experiences frequent beach closures along its shores, due to high levels of pathogens that are transported into the Sound’s waters after storm events. Additionally, despite dramatic reductions in toxic discharges to the Sound, atmospheric deposition and legacy contamination of sediments cause toxic contamination in the Sound. New York and Connecticut must still to maintain consumption advisories for several types of fish because they are unsafe for humans to eat on a daily basis.
It is because of these challenges that we are holding this hearing on the Long Island Sound. We have made significant progress upgrading wastewater treatment plants in Connecticut and New York and reducing their nitrogen loadings to the Sound. However, the Sound will not be fully restored unless more is done to address the remaining problems. Chief among these problems are urban runoff and integration of upstream states into the current program.
I welcome our witnesses today, and look forward to hearing their testimony. Our ultimate goal is to use your suggestions and recommendations to create a federal program that will better facilitate restoration of the Long Island Sound.
Thank you for being here today.
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