Long Island Sound Citizens Summit Recap

Friday was the Long Island Sound Citizens Summit and for those who couldn’t make it, you missed a great day of conversation and information sharing. Over 130 people came out for the summit at Iona College in New Rochelle, which was dedicated to longtime Long Island Sound advocate Art Glowka.

The general theme of the day expressed by the speakers was that there is a new reality for the Long Island Sound region- rising sea levels, higher storm surges, and more frequent storms- and we need to be taking steps to prepare the region for this future.

The featured presentation of the day was from Andrew Revkin, New York Times climate blogger. Revkin, in a question and answer discussion with Save the Sound’s Tom Andersen, discussed the issues related to communicating about climate change.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Tp5ri2BG9Q?list=UUGIJ4-9xxhFSt4NxfDxM0AA]

Throughout the day, participants heard from a wide variety of speakers representing municipalities, federal agencies, elected officials and advocates, including:

• New York State Senator George Latimer
• New York State Assemblyman Steve Englebright
• New York State Assemblyman Steven Otis
• Connecticut State Representative James Albis
• Nancy Seligson, Town Supervisor, Town of Mamaroneck & NY Co-Chair of the Citizens Advisory Committee of the Long Island Sound Study
• Rich Slingerland, Chief Executive Officer, Village of Mamaroneck
• Denise Savageau, Conservation Director, Town of Greenwich
• David Kooris, Director of Office of Planning and Economic Development, City of Bridgeport
• Michael Coley, First Deputy Commissioner, Westchester County Department of Environmental Facilities
• Susan Whalen, Deputy Commissioner, CT DEEP
• Jim Tierney, Assistant Commissioner, Water and Watershed, NYSDEC
• Anthony Ciorra, U.S. Army Corp of Engineers
• Christopher Rolleston, Mitigation Branch Director, DHS/FEMA
• Georgia Basso, Wildlife Biologist, US Fish and Wildlife Service
• Don Strait, Executive Director, Connecticut Fund for the Environment
• Curt Johnson, Director, Save the Sound
• Sean Mahar, Director of Government Relations, Audubon New York
• Tom Andersen, NY Program & Communications Coordinator, Save the Sound, and Director of Communications, Connecticut Audubon Society
• Sandy Breslin, Director of Governmental Affairs, Audubon Connecticut
• Adrienne Esposito, Executive Director, Citizens Campaign for the Environment
• David Sutherland, Government Relations Director, The Nature Conservancy Connecticut Chapter
• Nickitas Georgas, Senior Research Engineer, The Center for Maritime Systems at Stevens Institute for Technology
• Tim Dillingham, Executive Director, American Littoral Society
• Larry Swanson, Director & Associate Dean, Stony Brook University
• Joe MacDougald, Executive Director, Center for Energy and Environmental Law, University of Connecticut School of Law

We live-tweeted from the event throughout the day. Check out our Storify story to read the full conversation.

Below are the PowerPoint presentations given at the summit:

Nickitas Georgas, Stevens Institute of Technology[slideshare id=20357266&sc=no]

Curt Johnson, Save the Sound[slideshare id=20357238&sc=no]

David Kooris, City of Bridgeport[slideshare id=20357187&sc=no]

Tim Dillingham, American Littoral Society[slideshare id=20357124&sc=no]

Michael coley, westchester county Department of environmental facilities[slideshare id=20495175&sc=no]

You can read more about the summit in the following articles:

Patch: Climate Change and LI Sound Impact Subject of Summit

Journal News: Sandy signals rougher climate, frequent floods for Long Island Sound

New Haven Register: Long Island Sound Summit discusses ways to address problems

Stay tuned- we will be posting presentations from the summit and more videos in the coming days.

Posted by Rebecca Kaplan, director of communications for CFE/Save the Sound