Connecticut River Program

Vision

The vision of the Connecticut River program is to improve the health of New England’s largest river system by restoring the following characteristics: flow patterns with natural variations in magnitude, frequency, duration, timing and rate of change, that transport appropriate loads of sediment and nutrients and that maintain productive and diverse habitats supporting numerous species. We further envision the Connecticut River program as a center of scientific excellence, actively exporting knowledge in environmental flow management, solutions to stream fragmentation and floodplain restoration.

Key Strategies

• Managing water for people and nature: The Connecticut River has more than sixty large dams, including twenty hydropower plants, 14 flood control dams and several water supply facilities. Collectively, these human uses of water have had a serious effect on the way water moves through the Connecticut River and its 44 major tributaries. The impacts include changes in the timing, frequency, duration and magnitude of high and low flow events that affect the health of our target species and natural communities.
• Reconnecting rivers and streams: There are more than 2,700 dams and 44,000 road-stream crossings in the Connecticut River watershed. Many of these create barriers to upstream and downstream movement of aquatic fauna, as well as impediments to non-aquatic fauna that travel along stream corridors. The program will focus first on identifying those barriers which present the greatest impediments to these movements, prioritizing them for removal and, with partners, beginning the removal process.
• Restoring floodplains: For more than 200 years, the floodplains along the Connecticut River and its larger tributaries have been destroyed by deforestation and agriculture; and more recently, the development of large cities along its banks have further degraded this ecosystem. Restoring floodplains will not only provide habitat for a diversity of plant and animal species, but will also provide flood protection for cities and towns along the waterway.
• Protecting critical habitats: To date, the Conservancy has protected close to 250,000 acres of critical habitat in the Connecticut River Basin. While there are numerous opportunities to continue this effort state by state, there is also a clear multi-state opportunity in working with the Silvio O. Conte Refuge, the only watershed-based refuge in the US.

Staff: Kimberly A. Lutz (klutz@tnc.org), Program Director; Julie Zimmerman (jzimmerman@tnc.org), River Ecologist; Alex Jospe (ajospe@tnc.org), Conservation Information Manager; Cailin Xu (Cxu@tnc.org), Research Associate, Stream Fragmentation; Christian Marks (cmarks@tnc.org), Research Associate, Floodplain Restoration

Papers and Publications

Presentations