by | Jul 27, 2022 4:19 pm | Comments (3)
Laura Glesby Photo
Bob Pattison laments light pollution.
A proposal to raise the permitted height of sports facility lighting has generated controversy in Hamden among light sleepers, bird migration enthusiasts, and critics of Quinnipiac University’s role in the possible zoning change.
Continue reading ‘Zoners Debate, Table Sports Night-Lighting Change’
by | Jul 27, 2022 3:47 pm | Comments (14)
Contributed photo
A draft rendering of the Living Village addition, at the top left of the map, as it fits into the Divinity School's existing structure.
The Yale Divinity School plans to build a dormitory that recycles its wastewater and generates all its own energy — aiming to create the first residential building to meet “Living Building Challenge” standards for sustainability.
by | Jul 25, 2022 3:12 pm | Comments (5)
Yash Roy Photos
Yash Roy Photos
New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker, Sonia Cruz, and Mike Piscitelli at Monday's event.
As nations dither and the planet bakes, New Haven is getting ahead of the curve on preparing contractors in green construction and environmentally responsive design.
Continue reading ‘Diplomas In Hand, Climate-Conscious Contractor Corps Ready To Build Green’
by | Jul 22, 2022 5:02 pm | Comments (5)
City officials updated City Plan commissioners about two major long-term efforts to contain flooding near the train station and in the Hill, and got the go-ahead to keep pursuing them.
by | Jul 22, 2022 2:50 pm | Comments (3)
Ned Lamont announces bill in front of all-electric buses.
Gov. Ned Lamont inhaled the sweltering heat-wave air of the city with the country’s seventh-highest asthma prevalence — and touted a new state law aiming to make that air easier to breathe.
Continue reading ‘On Green, Lamont, Lawmakers Tout New Clean Air Act’
by | Jul 21, 2022 3:43 pm | Comments (2)
Five years after oil seeped into the New Haven Harbor by way of a leaky pipe, New Haven Terminal has agreed to pay the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) a $44,400 fine.
Continue reading ‘New Haven Terminal To Pay State $44,400 For Oil Leaks’
by | Jul 8, 2022 12:27 pm | Comments (9)
Monica Nichols photos
When I went on my latest rounds monitoring local osprey nests, I was relieved to find the ospreys still here. The mother ospreys were guarding their nests. The fathers were out looking for the fish that make up their entire diet. The heads of some of the recently hatched osprey chicks were starting to become visible above the sides of the nest.
by | Jun 20, 2022 11:42 am | Comments (7)
Olivia Charis Photo
Turning a dumping ground to a community treasure, volunteers worked to preserve the beach at the end of Howard Avenue.
Continue reading ‘City Point Volunteers Conquer Beach "Invaders"’
by | Jun 17, 2022 6:18 pm | Comments (3)
Thomas Breen photos
On Friday's canal history walking tour. Clockwise from top left: Tour guide Aaron Goode; Walking south past Yale's Benjamin Franklin College; an Escape New Haven-built diorama of the canal's early railroad years; a turtle sculpture in the Newhallville "Learning Corridor."
Aaron Goode pointed down to the 19th century trap rock retaining walls that still line the Farmington Canal Trail in Dixwell, and then up to the 21st century Yale-dorm-topping carved relief panels that pay homage to the enduring transportation corridor’s founding engineers.
“History is everywhere in New Haven,” he said, “above us and below.”
Continue reading ‘Rich History Revealed In Canal Walking Tour’
by | Jun 15, 2022 9:12 am | Comments (4)
David Sepulveda and Frenemy Photos
Corner of new mural facing Exchange Street.
Frenemy: Man with a can, and a message.
A sharp-eyed osprey peers over the edge of its densely woven nest of thick branches. A frog, dressed in patched coveralls and top hat, sits comfortably on a tree stump, reading to a school of attentive rainbow trout. Only the moon seems to have dozed off, its exhalations producing cottony-white night clouds with every breath.
These are some of the vignettes of animated plants and wildlife that have taken residence on the exterior walls of a previously faded and graffiti-marked industrial property adjacent the John S. Martinez Sea & Sky STEM Magnet K‑8 School in Fair Haven — thanks to the work of a globe-trotting muralist and illustrator who goes by the name Frenemy.
by | Jun 13, 2022 3:31 pm | Comments (14)
Laura Glesby Photo
Cycletrack would begin on far side of this notoriously car-centric stretch.
Plans for the curbed bike lane: filling "an important gap."
If Giovanni Zinn’s vision comes to fruition, cyclists will no longer need to take their lives into their hands while riding along Water Street beside highway-bound cars.
by | Jun 13, 2022 9:32 am | Comments (5)
Jordan Ashby Photo
Doreen Abubakar receiving the Audubon Connecticut Lifetime Achievement Award with Mike Burger, Executive Director of Audubon New York & Connecticut
People were buzzing about bees — and about the person behind putting together an event calling attention to the role they play in nature.
Continue reading ‘Urban Environmentalist Receives Audubon Lifetime Achievement Award’
by | Jun 10, 2022 12:54 pm | Comments (16)
Wikimedia
Soon to arrive in New Haven?
Get ready to remove those ear plugs: If Giovanni Zinn has his way, the city will buy a new garbage truck that lowers the sanitation system’s carbon footprint and that doesn’t emit the signature 5 a.m. screech of its diesel-powered counterparts.
Continue reading
‘City Sets Sights On
Electric Garbage Truck’
by | Jun 8, 2022 1:35 pm | Comments (1)
Lisa Reisman Photo
Fence installed last summer at Ferry Street Farm.
Twenty-seven community gardens and three nature preserves will get new soil, tools, hoop houses, raised beds, and other improvements thanks to an infusion of state cash.
by | Jun 8, 2022 9:30 am | Comments (4)
Brian Slattery Photos
Kotcher (aka Frenemy) and Bernblum at 162 James.
The latest mural from public art organization Site Projects is transforming a building in Fair Haven — just as the projects it’s connected to, from Save the Sound and the Mill River Trail, are hoping to transform the surrounding community’s relationship to the river nearby, and the nature all around them.
by | Jun 6, 2022 8:30 am | Comments (3)
Brian Slattery Photos
At the Winnett Food Forest on Sunday.
Adam Matlock, executive director of Winnett Food Forest, a nascent nonprofit in Hamden, was giving a group of visitors a tour of the plot of land on the corner of Winnett and Putnam as part of the project’s grand opening on Sunday afternoon. “The general ethos is that plants are better than no plants,” he said, as he maneuvered from one garden box to another. He had already planted plenty of species, some of which were familiar vegetables such as tomatillos and greens, others of which would take years to mature. But he was just as interested in what was already growing there — including a plant called a mullein. Sometimes it’s considered a weed, but to Matlock it was a welcome addition to the project. “It just came up, and by the end of the season I expect it to be about seven feet tall — and that will feed the birds all winter,” Matlock said.
by | Jun 3, 2022 3:17 pm | Comments (37)
Wikimedia
Gas-powered leaf blowers: lifeline or life-destroying?
Alder Avshalom-Smith: Blowers hurt breathers; ban hurts businesses.
The environmentalists said: The persistent roar of gas-powered leaf blowers pollute the air and cause long-term health and environmental damage.
The landscapers whose income currently depends on those leaf blowers said: Advocates who want to ban them are out of touch.
“I want to see how many calluses they have,” said one professional.
by | Jun 3, 2022 9:15 am | Comments (4)
Brent Peterkin in action at preserve, in prep for Black Birders Week walks.
Brent Peterkin Photo
Local Osprey makes use of Quinnpiac nest platform.
Large winged Ospreys circled overhead. Coupled Mourning Doves sang to each other on a thin leafless tree. Hunting Tree Swallows sped through the air in blue flashes.
That was the scene this week at the Quinnipiac Meadows Nature Preserve, a local Narnia-esque green space owned by Gather New Haven (GNH).
GNH Executive Director Brent Peterkin was scoping out the preserve, and pointing out its beauty, in advance of leading community bird walks on Friday and Saturday.
by | May 27, 2022 8:14 am | Comments (0)
Sam Gurwitt photo
Hole caused by July 2020 sewer main collapse on Whitney Avenue.
The regional water pollution authority has promised to invest $200,000 in stormwater runoff prevention efforts near the Eli Whitney Museum parking lot — nearly two years after a busted sewer main at that site sent 2.1 million gallons of sewage into the Mill River.
by | May 26, 2022 2:06 pm | Comments (3)
Thomas Breen photo
Entrance to Wheeler Street waste-transfer site.
A controversial Annex waste transfer station won permission to keep its doors open for another two years — so long as it takes extra steps to cut down on rodents, bad smells, speeding and idling trucks, and inadmissible wet trash.
Continue reading ‘Waste Plant Gets 2 Years, With 23 Conditions’
by | May 25, 2022 5:32 pm | Comments (4)
Laura Glesby Photo
Neighbors welcome: Clancy Emanuel begins compost demonstration at expanded operation.
A heap of discarded orange peels, eggshells, peanuts, and vegetables of every hue came one step closer to becoming reusable compost — by way of long shovels, animal poop, dead leaves, a group of committed community members, and an influx of federal funding for Common Ground High School’s urban farm.
by | May 13, 2022 4:32 pm | Comments (20)
Laura Glesby Photo
A shingle oak with star-like leaves was planted Friday just feet from the Quinnipiac River — marking a milestone in New Haven’s ongoing efforts to make the Elm City a tree city once more with deeply connected grass roots.
by , and | May 11, 2022 4:27 pm | Comments (20)
Independent reporters Laura Glesby, Maya McFadden, and Nora Grace-Flood on scene at New Haven's newest direct-connection destination.
It took less than ten minutes through TSA, two hours on a plane, and a timeless rock track sung by a musician moonlighting as a Lyft driver to transport a trio of New Haveners to Nashville.
In the same amount of time, three hyperlocal reporters and homebodies were transformed into tourists, traversing beyond transportation-themed press conferences into new territory bordered by bluegrass, barbecue and surprisingly substantial bike lanes for a car-centric state.
by | May 11, 2022 1:47 pm | Comments (7)
Thomas Breen photo
Boarding an Avelo flight from Tweed in February.
Zoom image
Wednesday's virtual Development Commission meeting.
A business-boosting nonprofit is teaming up with the city to bring the gospel of New Haven on the road — or, rather, on the plane — to some of the 14 communities newly accessible via Avelo Airlines.
by | May 6, 2022 12:37 pm | Comments (9)
Thomas Breen photo
Entrance to Wheeler Street waste-transfer site.
Do seagulls on the site of an Annex waste transfer station mean that the place is filthy, smelly, and in violation of city zoning rules?
Or does that web-footed, salt-water-drinking avian presence reflect nothing more than the facility’s riverfront location — and the fact that there are lots of seagulls up and down the coast?
Continue reading ‘Transfer Station Debate Goes To The Gulls’