 |
CIRCA Municipal and Research Projects Forum: Posters Available to View
If you missed the CIRCA Forum on
May 4
, you can now view the posters presented on CIRCA's website. You will find the poster at the end of each grantee's project summary at the links below. Each poster gives a detailed look at regional and municipal solutions and research addressing Connecticut's adaptation, resilience and science information needs. These posters are part of CIRCA's programs to share lessons learned from our grants with all of Connecticut's communities.
----------------------------------------------------
Green Infrastructure for Coastal Resilience Training: Presentations Available to View
CIRCA and NOAA partnered on May 23, 2017 to present a Green Infrastructure for Coastal Resilience Training. Training staff from NOAA and CIRCA introduced participants to fundamental green infrastructure concepts and practices that can play a critical role in making coastal communities more resilient to natural hazards. The agenda also featured green infrastructure projects from CIRCA grantees in Stratford and MetroCOG as well as presentations from New Haven, Eastern CT Conservation District, and the University of Connecticut Center for Land Use Education and Research.
You will find the presentations from this training under the "Products" section at the link below:
2017 Long Island Sound Futures Fund
NFWF is pleased to announce the 2017
Request for Proposals
for the Long Island Sound Futures Fund (LISFF). The RFP will close on
June 22.
The RFP priorities include the following: 1) Clean Water and Healthy Watersheds; 2) Thriving Habitats and Abundant Wildlife; and 3) Educating to Engage Sustainable and Resilient Communities. The RFP is similar to previous years, but has been updated to include Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York for water quality nitrogen removal projects within the Long Island Sound watershed.
There is one webinar open for registration (webinar information is below). We encourage potential applicants to fully review the RFP and other supporting materials found on the website.
Applicant Webinar 2: 5/31 from 1:30pm to 3:00pm ET (Register here)
If you have any questions, please contact:
Mike Lagua
Coordinator, Long Island Sound and Delaware River
National Fish and Wildlife Foundation
1133 Fifteenth Street, NW
Suite 1100
Washington, DC 20005
2017 Responsible Growth and Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) Grant Program
The Office of Policy and Management (OPM) is pleased to announce a Request for Applications (RFA) for the 2017 Responsible Growth and Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) Grant Program. Municipalities and Regional Councils of Governments (COGs) are invited to apply for grants ranging between $10,000 and $2,000,000, for a wide range of planning and construction projects to advance State, regional, and local goals for responsible growth and transit-oriented development. Joint applications and partnerships are encouraged, and may also include non-profit and private entities, where appropriate. Priority may be given to applicants which have received implementation grants under CTNext's Innovation Places program.
Interested applicants must meet the project eligibility requirements and submit a completed Application Form as detailed in the RFA. Applications will be evaluated by OPM, in consultation with other agencies, based on the degree to which they satisfy the Program Objectives identified in Section C of the RFA. Proposals will be selected on a rolling basis, and selected applicants will be expected to collaborate with OPM, and other State agencies, to develop contract agreements and a scope of work structured around the applicant's initial proposal.
Applications for the 2017 program are due Friday June 23, 2017.
All correspondence relating to this program shall be directed to the Official State Contact, Matthew Pafford, at either Matthew.Pafford@ct.gov or Office of Policy and Management, 450 Capitol Avenue MS# 54ORG, Hartford, CT 06106-1379, in accordance with the requirements of the RFA.
The 2017 Responsible Growth and Transit-Oriented Development RFA is available at the following links:
Back to Announcements

-
---------------------------------------------------
The Connecticut Institute for Resilience and Climate Adaptation (CIRCA)- Call for Research Proposals
The Connecticut Institute for Resilience and Climate Adaptation (CIRCA) is pleased to announce a new call for Research Proposals. Up to $200,000 is available for research proposals that address resilience of Connecticut's communities through a two-phase proposal process. While projects involving multiple investigators are encouraged,
the principal investigator must be a member of the University of Connecticut faculty
.
PRIORITY RESEARCH TOPICS:
Proposals should address research on at least one of the following CIRCA priority topics:
-
Socioeconomic impacts of climate change on Connecticut coastal municipalities;
-
Innovative approaches to resilient engineering and adaptation in Connecticut (e.g. green infrastructure for stormwater management);
-
Innovative financing approaches for adaptation in Connecticut; and
-
Effectiveness of "living shoreline" approaches to coastal erosion control in Connecticut.
Short pre-proposals will be solicited and reviewed by the CIRCA Executive Steering Committee and those that are most consistent with the CIRCA mission and these four research priorities will be encouraged to submit a full proposal. The CIRCA share of project costs should not be less than $40,000 or exceed $80,000. All proposals should include a plan to disseminate the results through community engagement.
APPLICATION TIMELINE:
June 6 - grant announcement
June 26 - informational webinar
July 26 - preliminary proposals due
August 16 - response to preliminary proposals
October 1 - full proposals due
November 1 - award announcement
For questions, please contact:
Back to Announcements
|
|
|
|

Events
|
|
|
|
|
|
Call for Research Proposals
APPLICATION TIMELINE:
June 6 - grant announcement
June 26 - informational webinar
July 26 - preliminary proposals due
August 16 - response to preliminary proposals
October 1 - full proposals due
November 1 - award announcement
Register and join the informational webinar on June 26 from 11:00am to 12:00pm ET by linking here:
For questions, please contact:
|
Local & State News Clips
June 20, 2017- GZA Presents Interim Results of Saybrook Sea Rise Study
How would the town's municipal infrastructure and residential neighborhoods be affected by sea level rise projections for 2040? For 2065? Or by 2100? Last week representatives of GZA Geoenvironmental offered answers to these questions in a community presentation of its findings so far in this grant-funded Sea Level Rise study. A final report and presentation of findings will be in September.
Risk of flooding in storms or in extreme tides is a situation faced by many properties south of Route One since much of the land is just six, seven, or eight feet above the still water elevation. In the future, any increase in the average sea level would begin to affect these properties and the town roads more often than today.
How much will the sea level rise? That depends on which projections are selected. For the purposes of this study, GZA said it used the Army Corps of Engineers and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) projections. For the year 2040, the sea level rise is projected to rise between 0.05 and 1.23 feet compared to today; for 2065, between 0.24 and 2.96 feet.
Back to News Clips
----------------------------------------------------
June 4, 2017- Connecticut Faces Changes From Global Warming Regardless of Trump Climate Change Decision
President Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement could accelerate and worsen the dramatic impacts global warming is already having on Long Island Sound as well as on Connecticut's environment and landscape, according to experts.
The sound's levels have been rising for decades,and its waters are warming. So is Connecticut's air. Shoreline flooding is more frequent. Intense rainfall is becoming common across the state. Violent storms are expected to hit more often.
Studies have repeatedly documented what most scientists believe are the growing impacts that climate change is having on Connecticut, it's marine environment, our landscape and the people and animals who live here.
The overwhelming consensus among climate experts in Connecticut and around the world is that global warming is happening and that human activity is - at the very least - making it worse. Their fear is that, unless more is done to curb pollution, the long-term effects of climate change could be even more devastating than what is now predicted.
Back to News Clips
|
 National News Clips
June 20, 2017- New York City Planners With Sandy Nightmares Say Barrier May Come Too Late
The warming Atlantic Ocean has raised the risk of another Hurricane Sandy. And still, trillions of dollars of real estate and infrastructure near the shores of New York City and northern New Jersey remain vulnerable to devastation.
A storm-surge barrier similar to those in Louisiana and parts of Europe might protect the area, but politicians have questioned its $30 billion cost, effectiveness and environmental impact. A group of scientists, planners and property owners is urging the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to accelerate its study of the project. It may take another hurricane to speed up the process.
"The danger is increasing as the sea level rises," said Malcolm Bowman, an oceanographer at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, who is among the group. "It won't take a monster storm like Sandy to devastate the region."
Bowman warned of a catastrophic storm as far back as 2005, in a New York Times
Op-Ed article
. Seven years later, Sandy struck the region, flooding airports and tunnels and ravaging shore communities from Atlantic City, New Jersey, to Bridgeport, Connecticut. It caused $68.9 billion in damage, making it the second-costliest storm in U.S. history after Katrina, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Back to News Clips
----------------------------------------------------
June 13, 2017- How the Bay Area Is Restoring Nature's Delicate Balance
(...)
Here in San Francisco Bay, the catchall name for the estuary, humans have changed the shoreline and ecology since the Spanish explorer Portola set eyes on it in 1769 and brash chancers swarmed to the Gold Rush in 1849. As the population grew, newcomers from around the world brought a diversity of lifestyles, filled the tidal marshes, dumped mine tailings, and brought exotic species by railroad and ship. Later came dams, sewage, oil refineries, and plastic pollution.
And now, rising sea levels and competing demands for fresh water are threatening to change the bay again. Over a year's time, I stopped along the 1,000-mile water's edge of nine counties via 1995 Subaru, light rail, and a slew of motor boats and kayaks to see how people are trying to restore the balance of this bay I love.
San Francisco's Crissy Field was a U.S. Army airfield and dumping ground for hazardous waste until 1994, when the National Park Service took control of the area. A massive cleanup effort included 3,000 volunteers planting 100,000 plants. Here, plants thrive in restored sand dunes.
When I arrived 30 years ago from the desert town of Tucson to work as an environment reporter at the San Francisco Examiner, only a few voices were warning against shoreline development, rising tides and excess river water diversions to cities and farms. Two decades ago, spurred by declining numbers of dozens of bird and fish species, scientists and others launched efforts to bring back tidal marsh, the bread and butter of an estuary. The marsh acts as a nursery for microalgae that feed invertebrates eaten by larger fish, shrimp and crabs. At low tide, migratory birds forage by the millions on tidal flats.
----------------------------------------------------
June 12, 2017- Porcelain From Old Toilets Used to Collect Stormwater and Build Oyster Reef in NYC's Jamaica Bay
In an ongoing mission to make New York City a more sustainable place to live, the NYC Department of Education has successfully partnered with the
Department of Environmental Protection
to retrofit inefficient bathroom fixtures across schools in all five boroughs. The "Toilet Recycling Project," detailed in the video above, replaced approximately 5,000 porcelain potties, which were crushed and used to construct an
oyster reef
in
Jamaica Bay
, as well as bioswales that collect stormwater in the city.
The DEP provided the funding for the initiative, which had a goal of retrofitting 500 New York City school buildings - an ambitious endeavor considering the fact that New York City is home to the largest school system in the United States with 1.1 million students and 1,300 facilities (many of which were constructed before the mid-1990s). According to the video, the city could eventually save four million gallons of water per day by removing 30,000 old toilets from Department of Education facilities alone and replacing them with more water-efficient fixtures.
The idea to repurpose the toilets as a potential oyster bed came from John McLaughlin, the Managing Director of the Office of Ecosystem Services, who noted that porcelain could be used as a base for a reef in Jamaica Bay (much like how the former Fountain Avenue Landfill was turned into a nature preserve). In preparation for the project, the toilets were power-washed and smashed into pieces just the right size.
"There was a lot of logistical issues that we had to make sure that we delivering the exact product for constructing an oyster reef," said Ben Huff, a Project Manager at the Department of Environmental Protection. "It's not just that you can smash a toilet and throw it in the bay; we had to make sure that there were no metal or plastic parts on the toilets, and we really wanted to make sure that the porcelain was as clean as possible."
----------------------------------------------------
June 9, 2017- Mainland Miami Ponders Returning Neighborhoods To Nature in Order To Survive Rising Seas
On mainland Miami, miles away from the pumps that keep Biscayne Bay from slowly swallowing South Beach, the neighborhood around Ray Chasser's riverfront house sometimes seems like it's drowning one high tide at a time.
When the moon is full and the bay bloated, a salty soup comes seeping forth from French drains and onto the streets, turning the low-lying peninsula where the southeast corner of Shorecrest meets the mouth of the Little River into a temporary tide pool. During the annual King Tide, when the water level is at its peak, the coastal community floods for days, something Chasser says didn't happen when he first acquired his property 30 years ago. ...
Local predictions of up to five feet of sea rise by the next century suggest that the increasing problems created by tidal events are a harbinger of things to come. East of a natural ridge, much of the neighborhood is barely three feet above sea level, making it among the most vulnerable pockets of South Florida real estate not located on a barrier island - and a prime candidate for an existential climate makeover.
Continue...
|
|
The Resilience Roundup highlights
CIRCA's presence in the news, provides links to recent local/state/national news articles related to resilience and adaptation, and announces upcoming events and seminars.
The Connecticut Institute for Resilience and Climate Adaptation's (CIRCA) mission is to increase the resilience and sustainability of vulnerable communities along Connecticut's coast and inland waterways to the growing impacts of climate change and extreme weather on the natural, built, and human environment. The institute is located at the University of Connecticut's Avery Point campus and includes faculty from across the university. CIRCA is a partnership between UConn and the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (CT DEEP).
|
|
|
|
|
 |