Couldn’t make this year’s Annual Meeting? Read on for this year’s highlights.
For the first time since 2019, we invited Save the Sound members to gather together in-person to commemorate the successes of the past year and look forward to the goals of the coming one. Whether you missed the Annual Meeting, or attended and want to re-watch, we have highlights from this year’s event listed below.
On Thursday, September 22, at Penfield Pavilion in Fairfield, CT we held the Annual Meeting featuring presentations from key staff and board as well as keynote speaker Philip K. Howard.
Kicking off the program was Save the Sound Board Chair Todd Cort with opening remarks on the past year of Save the Sound’s successes thanks to our supporters. He highlighted completion of the John and Daria Barry Foundation Water Quality Laboratory at the Larchmont, NY office; expanded efforts into New York including Hutchinson River watershed planning; continued success in the ongoing fight to preserve Plum Island; creation of new greenspaces in coastal Connecticut with community engagement; removing derelict lobster pots from the Sound to reduce ghost-fishing; and working to remove the Kinneytown dam and free the Naugatuck River for migratory fish.
“It’s been a very successful year, it’s been a very stable year,” said Todd. “We are also creating the guardrails for growth and succession right now, and you are going to hear a lot about that succession tonight. We have an outgoing president and an incoming president, and it’s a time of great excitement within the organization.”
Save the Sound then-president Curt Johnson reflected on not only the past year, but the past three decades he has spent with the organization fighting for a healthy regional environment. (More about this leadership transition later!)
Curt highlighted Save the Sound going head-to-head with a sewage overflow issue in Westchester, NY. Thanks to the power of the Clean Water Act, which turned 50 years old this October, Save the Sound filed lawsuits against Westchester County and 11 municipalities for severe violations. The negotiated settlements so far resulted in funding for 30,000+ sewage pipe repairs to be completed and 472 miles of sewage pipelines to be fixed, with another awaiting court approval now.
The Clean Water Act has also impacted the health of the Naugatuck River. Thankfully, it is now running clean but there is a big problem near the Kinneytown Dam. “A [local resident who works with youth] brought his kids out to do some diving in the quiet area underneath the dam and discovered thousands of fish [unable to move past the dam],” said Curt. Despite there being a fishway, a detour route for migrating fish past a particular obstruction on the river, only a handful of fish actually use it each year due to poor design. This discovery led to Save the Sound’s Staff Attorney Katherine Fiedler to send in a petition to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Curt made note that we will be able to remove this dam and free the Naugatuck River for migratory fish.
Curt presented the Lifetime Achievement Award to departing board member Barbara O. David, for her many years of dedication to Save the Sound and protecting our natural areas.
“One of my great heroes is Barbara David, who has been on our board for 32 years,” said Curt. “She has been a stalwart supporter of our legal work. She realized that is what could make the difference in Connecticut and New York.”
“During these last few years nothing has cheered me more than seeing an email come in from [Save the Sound staff] to tell us about a new legal win, many settled out of court but all impactful,” said Barbara.
Barbara has been instrumental in growing Save the Sound’s legal work, a cornerstone of how we fight for your environment. While she is poised to focus on other personal interests, she will always be a strong supporter of Save the Sound and continue to engage with our team to realize our plans for the future.
Barbara put it succinctly as she closed her acceptance speech with a standing ovation: “I’ve had the time of my life.”
Sharing a visual of a massive fish die-off from 30 years ago, Curt painted a picture of how the waters of the Sound were anoxic (devoid of oxygen) and unsustainable for life, as well as unhealthy for the community. In an effort to solve the problem, the EPA installed an office in Stamford, CT, led by Mark Tedesco and reached a legal agreement, enforcing the Clean Water Act’s requirement that the waters of the United States be “fishable,” to reduce nitrogen in the Sound by 70 percent.
Curt presented Mark Tedesco with the President’s Award for the decades he spent working to improve and protect Long Island Sound water quality.
Other awardees not in attendance were Jack Brewer, founder of the Brewer Boatyard Group and member of Save the Sound’s Soundkeeper Task Force, and Tripp Killin, executive director of The Jeniam Foundation.
In his last meeting before retirement, Curt Johnson rounded out his presentation by introducing the incoming Save the Sound president, Leah Lopez Schmalz.
In her remarks, Leah talked about the core principles that have guided her leadership as Save the Sound’s Vice President of Programs: trust, creativity, tenacity, outcomes-orientation, and service. She laid out her vision for the future and how it has shaped our new strategic plan.
“We want people to feel connected to one another and we want people to feel connected to Save the Sound and the community,” said Leah. “The way we’re going to do that is with our strategic plan.”
Protect, Restore, Transform: these are the key goals of the strategic plan. Leah outlined the specific goals under each, including protecting 12,500 acres of endangered land, restoring 12 shorelines to prevent flooding and provide wildlife habitat, and transforming the carbon economy by enacting carbon pricing to reduce emissions, to name a few. Click here to see her plans in more detail, as laid out in her presentation.
This year’s keynote speaker, Philip K. Howard, is well versed in environmental politics. Philip, founder of bipartisan non-profit Common Good, spearheaded reforms to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to reduce review process time for projects requiring environmental impact statements to no more than two years (average has been 4.5 years). He is also a best-selling author of multiple books, is Senior Counsel at the law firm Covington & Burling, LLP, and has advised national political leaders on reform for 15 years.
“It’s really an honor to be here with you on your 50th anniversary,” said Philip in his opening remarks, commenting on how impactful Save the Sound has been in that time. “The Long Island Sound would not be clean without all of your work. Our rivers in Naugatuck…were practically catching on fire…your accomplishments are unbelievably important.”
Philip framed environmental policy and politics through the lens of his experience working with leaders on both side of the aisle, pointing out the difficulty in making progress on a larger scale addressing problems like global warming or ocean pollution.
“What I found in doing national policy related work…is that the same techniques that work on a local and regional level do not work on a national level,” said Philip. There’s no concrete source of collective outrage like what one finds when a local sewage spill occurs for the bigger environmental issues. These regional issues, while manageable at the local levels, cause gridlock at the national level.
“Change only happens, really significant change, in big gulps,” said Philip. The last time, he noted, with the major significant policy change was in the 1960s, mostly as a result of grassroots movements putting on pressure for change. “We are at a moment like that, the waters are roiling.”
Pointing out that the environmental movement often expects perfection, Philip advocated for trade-offs and political deal-making as a means of advancing the environmental agenda. Additionally, he said, there’s very little means of holding a government official responsible for their actions. With a simplification of laws, goals, and government principles, leaving implementation to officials on the ground gives them more responsibility as well as accountability.
“Where we are today in American democracy is we’re in gridlock,” said Philip. “To get where environmentalists want to go…you need to get together with other groups that have completely different interests than yours, with the simple goal of getting things moving again. And that’s the simplification.”
After his speech, Philip sat down with Board Chair Todd Cort and Board Member E. Donald Elliott for a roundtable discussion to reflect on the keynote comments and further the conversation. The roundtable was followed by audience Q&A. See the below video for full content.
The closing comments delivered by Todd Cort honored Curt Johnson’s three-decade legacy. Todd noted that what mattered most to Curt during his tenure were community and impact.
“It’s been extraordinary to see Curt’s commitment to community,” said Todd, noting it stretch beyond staff to community and organization partnerships. “Something that’s inspired me the most about Curt has been protecting people in the community. That it’s not just the environment–it is the people and the environment.”
As he closed, Todd invited the audience for a final thank-you to Curt Johnson for all he has done for Save the Sound and environmental protection.