by | Mar 11, 2024 10:26 am | Comments (31)
Nora Grace-Flood Photo
All charged up with nowhere to go: Yet-to-be-deployed city-owned Chevy Bolts lined up outside 200 Wintergreen Ave.
Nora Grace-Flood Photos
Climateers Max Teirstein, Steve Winter.
New Haven is starting small before going big — literally — as the city amps up its energy to go electric by 2030.
by | Mar 4, 2024 9:35 am | Comments (24)
A preliminary map of New Haven's upcoming addition to the Shoreline Greenway — connected to the Farmington Canal to the west and Shoreline Greenway to the East.
Northampton will soon be a hundred-mile hop, skip or jump away from Hammonasset State Park — once New Haven establishes itself as the link between the Farmington Canal Trail and Shoreline Greenway.
Continue reading ‘Move Over, Appalachian Trail: Canal Will Reach Guilford’
by | Mar 1, 2024 1:37 pm | Comments (4)
Maya McFadden Photo
Jonathón Savage.
Jonathón Savage, a Newhallville-raised urban gardener, has taken the helm of one of the city’s leading green organizations, Gather New Haven.
by | Feb 28, 2024 12:14 pm | Comments (2)
Thomas Breen Photo
CMT Chair Kim Harris: How does the neighborhood benefit?
How will local bids for geothermal and political power translate into a more empowered Newhallville community?
That question arose repeatedly at the latest gathering of the Newhallville Community Management Team.
Continue reading ‘Neighbors Turn Up Political, Geothermal Heat’
by | Feb 27, 2024 1:14 pm | Comments (21)
US Department of Energy
Depictions of geothermal temperature control in both warm and cool months.
Yale is soon to test out a new way of heating and cooling campus buildings without burning fossil fuels: by drawing from the earth’s temperature 850 feet below “Science Hill.”
by | Feb 27, 2024 11:24 am | Comments (2)
Brian Slattery Photo
Goode leads group into woods.
Aaron Goode of the New Haven Bioregional Group smiled at the roughly 30 people assembled in the parking lot of New Haven Friends Meeting on Grand Avenue in Fair Haven Heights, ready to hike.
“Welcome to New Haven’s own Jurassic Park,” he said, explaining that the sign-in sheet people had signed also doubled as a “liability release” in case of dinosaur attack. He then corrected himself; if he were being more accurate, it would have to be called Upper Triassic Park, for the age of the rocks — and the fossils — that were found behind him in Quarry Park, a city park and site of a previous Bioregional hike last year.
by | Feb 22, 2024 12:56 pm | Comments (11)
Wikimedia
New Haven's electric garbage truck #2?
The fleet of trucks keeping New Haven clean could soon get a little bit cleaner itself, if a state grant supporting electric vehicles comes through.
by | Feb 13, 2024 4:12 pm | Comments (62)
Paul Bass File Photo
Tiny particles from Tweed planes like this one have raised concerns about Morris Cove air.
An air pollution researcher reported finding that unregulated “ultrafine” particles spike when Tweed airplanes take off and land — prompting neighbors to consider whether to adjust their daily routines to avoid air pollution, and the airport to double down on plans to expand their operations.
Continue reading ‘"Ultrafine" Pollution Enters Tweed Debate’
by | Jan 31, 2024 2:53 pm | Comments (1)
Maya McFadden Photo
State Dept of Ed's Erik Clemons and Felicia Canty came to listen.
Dozens of Common Ground High School’s community members expressed support for the school’s state renewal while a handful said the renewal should be granted only if the school agrees to make administrative improvements.
Continue reading ‘Students, Families Urge Common Ground Renewal’
by | Jan 31, 2024 9:40 am | Comments (11)
Brian Slattery Photos
Davis and Burgess.
On Tuesday morning, Peter Davis, a volunteer river keeper with the city parks department, and fellow volunteer David Burgess were over the edge of the slope off Diamond Street in Beaver Hills, lugging a dilapidated couch out of the woods. Around them was a thin carpet of other discarded objects. Among the trash bags were a fan, a decaying rug, a mattress, a rusting wheelchair.
It was a lot of garbage. Davis and Burgess were taking it one piece at a time.
Continue reading ‘Volunteers Take Out The Trash At Beaver Brook’
by | Jan 29, 2024 4:03 pm | Comments (42)
"Just look at this place": State Attorney General Tong, Mayor Elicker, State Sen. Looney, and DEEP Commissioner Dykes on Monday.
State officials stumbled across the littered grounds leading up to English Station to announce a lawsuit filed on the same grounds as other failed threats against United Illuminating — seeking to re-energize the company’s long-delayed remediation of the site.
by | Jan 29, 2024 10:03 am | Comments (9)
Allan Appel Photo
Anthropology major Chris Kowalski (above) and Aaron Goode (below) de-vine by Beaver Brook.
Brian Slattery Photo
Clip high, clip low, create a window. Also don’t be a Tarzan and pull on those cut vines lest you disturb insect habitats or the birds high in the trees above.
Those were among the illuminating arboricultural tips offered for some serious de-vining of New Haven’s invasive-threatened native oaks, maples, sycamores, and hackberry trees growing on a beautiful but under-loved patch of city-owned forested greenspace.
by | Jan 26, 2024 11:30 am | Comments (17)
As close to actualization as they've gotten: A rough sketch of the future West River apartments.
Tom Breen Photo
Marchand: Would love "another bite" at the environmental apple.
A long-delayed elderly housing development will now open its doors to families of all ages – if it ever does end up actually opening its doors.
by | Jan 19, 2024 8:43 am | Comments (5)
Hosts Adrian Leighton, Gary Dunning, Gerald Torres, and Marlyse Duguid (clockwise from upper left).
The city is seeking input on its vision for the next ten years, reimagines its parks system, and builds the possible effects of climate change into its efforts — all while acknowledging that we live on Native American land. Meanwhile, from another corner of environmental thinking, research, and practice, a set of ideas is emerging that, in time, could unify all of those strands into a single approach.
Continue reading
‘Tribal Forest Talks Suggest
Ways To Adapt With Hope’
by | Jan 15, 2024 3:23 pm | Comments (29)
Laura Glesby Photo
Parks staffer Janice Parker, right, explains the department's current structure.
A public-private funding structure. A “superintendent of fields.” A department divided into geographical districts, each with a point person for neighbors to contact.
Those ideas are all on the table as the city moves forward with a plan to un-merge the Parks and Public Works Department.
by | Jan 12, 2024 11:32 am | Comments (49)
Nora Grace-Flood Photo
City Plan chief Laura Brown Thursday night: Help us chart city's future.
The city invited the public to a launch party for a once-in-a-decade rewrite of New Haven’s primary land use document — and the community showed up.
by | Jan 12, 2024 9:00 am | Comments (9)
Wilbur Cross and Wooster Square are going electric — or, at least, readying to keep electric cars going.
Continue reading ‘24 EV Charging Stations Coming To Cross, Wooster Square’
by | Dec 20, 2023 8:36 am | Comments (23)
Thomas Breen file photo
A public bus on Dixwell Ave.
Strengthen incentives for people to buy electric vehicles. Build more, and more varied, charging stations. Replace school buses with zero-emission vehicles. Make public buses electric. Expand public transit into more rural parts of the state. Cut down on truck idling at highway construction sites.
Those are just some of the ideas at the center of state and regional planning efforts for how Connecticut can reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 80 percent below 2001 levels by 2050.
A federally funded competitive grant program has state and regional environmental entities readying proposals on that very topic — with a focus on reducing climate change-exacerbating emissions, especially in low-income neighborhoods.
In the process, data is being collected, and lessons learned, about just what the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions are.
Continue reading ‘Want To Curb Emissions? Start With Transportation’
by | Dec 8, 2023 4:08 pm | Comments (17)
The Yale Golf Course, as pictured in a City Plan presentation.
Yale has won city permission to cut down more than 1,000 trees and renovate its Upper Westville golf course as part of a plan that university officials pitched as making 200 acres of fairways and tees more “sustainable” — and that local activists criticized as environmentally backwards.
Continue reading ‘Yale's Tree-Cutting Golf Course Renovation Plan OK'd’
by | Dec 7, 2023 9:07 am | Comments (8)
Nora Grace-Flood photo
URI's Chris Ozyck solicits public parks feedback at 200 Orange.
Pick up more litter, clean the bathrooms better, and designate more point people to deal with public park concerns.
Those are some of the top priorities New Haveners have for their city’s green spaces, as documented in a community input process overseen by the Urban Resource Initiative on behalf of the Elicker administration.
by | Nov 22, 2023 8:29 am | Comments (3)
Maya McFadden file photo
Student composters at work in Cross's cafeteria back in June.
This Thanksgiving season, Wilbur Cross sophomore Manxi Han is thankful to have a home that is not routinely submerged in several feet of water as sea levels rise, for access to food despite climate change-related disasters destroying farm lands, for healthy and clean air year-round, for minimal heat waves as the earth’s temperature rises, and for biodiversity as rates of extinction increase.
Continue reading ‘Student Climate Activists Speak Up About What To Fear, What To Be Thankful For’
by | Nov 21, 2023 9:56 am | Comments (2)
Fairmont Park's planned new play area.
A splash pad, swing set, and children’s play area are en route to Fairmont Park, thanks to playground upgrade plans for the Fair Haven Heights greenspace.
Continue reading ‘Make Way For A New Playground At Fairmont Park’
by | Nov 21, 2023 9:07 am | Comments (3)
Brian Slattery Photo
Dishawn Harris, a.k.a Farmer D., at Saturday's workshop.
Putting your hands to soil to plant garlic. Chewing on a leaf of fresh oregano. Noticing the sun on your face. At “Rooted Youth,” a collaborative event between the Dixwell art center NXTHVN and the garden-creation outfit Root Life, held at the Goffe Street Armory Garden, participants learned about how these simple experiences can open up broader pathways to understanding more about our relationship to our environment, and how we can adapt to climate change.
Continue reading ‘Garden Workshop Teaches How To Put Down Roots’
by | Nov 17, 2023 9:20 am | Comments (5)
Thomas Breen file photo
City Chief Arborist Anastasia Mixsell.
New Haven may soon have an urban forest management plan.
But what does that mean?
Continue reading ‘$360K Planning Grant To Bolster "Urban Forests"’
by | Nov 14, 2023 3:35 pm | Comments (15)
Brian Slattery Photos
A Yale-owned research station that is an experiment in “regenerative architecture” poses a profound question about the future of making, and unmaking, buildings: how can new construction not just have zero impact on the environment, but also reverse some of the damage humans have done?
Continue reading ‘Peabody Building Project Goes Beyond Sustainability’