Council of Environmental Quality releases Swamped: Cities, Towns, the Connecticut DEP and the Conservation of Inland Wetlands.

Read the report, supporting documentation and news release.

US Army Corps of Engineers - New England District Mitigation Guidance for New England District Mitigation Plan Checklist, January 2007

This is an excellent reference document for wetland mitigation. Click here to view document.

"Best Management Practices for water quality while harvesting forest products".
Connecticut DEP Division of Forestry. Available on line at the Division of Forestry website
< click here >

CONNECTICUT SOIL SURVEY INFORMATION ON LINE
Municipal land use commissions, contractors, town planners, engineers, farmers, and homeowners can now easily download soil information. The new US Department off Agriculture (USDA) Web Soil Survey site provides secure public access to the national soils information system. Click here to view site.

Soil surveys are needed for most land conservation activities, as well as private and commercial land development. With the new online SOIL SURVEY INFORMATION almost anyone in Connecticut can look up soils information for their specific location.

USDA designed the website with three easy-to-use features – Define, View, and Explore. When viewers access the web soil survey, they are asked to define a geographic area. Once a location is defined and projected on the screen, the viewer is offered the choice to print the map and related information, save it to their hard drive, or download the data for use in a geographic information system.

The viewer can also explore the designed location and receive information on soil suitability in relationship to usage. This provides the viewer flexibility in developing a report to address a specific need – whether it is to design a road, plant a field, or create a wetland for wildlife habitat.

Regulating Tree-Cutting

Cutting on Wetlands and Other Preserved Land Connecticut’s preserved lands are under siege, according to, Preserved But Not Protected, a recent report by Connecticut’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). The most common problem is illegal tree-cutting, but there are many other illegal actions to conservation lands owned by the state, municipalities, land trusts and other private entities. While evidence for encroachment of public and preserved land is easy to document there is a lack of legal recourse available to defend against them. Below are two articles on a recent Connecticut Supreme Court case involving the illegal cutting of 340 trees in wetlands on land owned by the East Haddam Land Trust and The Nature Conservancy. Both articles and CEQ’s Special Report are instructive for both Inland Wetlands and Conservation Commissions.

	CT DEP Victorious before the State Supreme Court: Mellon Tree-Cutting Subject to CEPA Relief. By Assistant Attorney General Janet P. Brooks
	The Habitat Fall 2005 Damages for Wetlands Violations: Lesson from Ventres v. Mellon, by Mark K. Branse, Esq; The Habitat, Fall 2005
	Preserved But Not Protected, Connecticut’s Council on Environmental Quality; 2005 Special Report .
	Funding "Third Party" Inland Wetlands Technical Experts CACIWC has received numerous requests for information on the how commissions can legally contract with a “third party” technical expert to review development applications at the expense of the applicant. Below are two articles with information to assist commissions in making a decision regarding “expert witnesses”: Who Pays the Piper . . . Funding Professional Reviews in Wetlands Applications, by Mark K. Branse, Esq, and, Errors as a matter of fact: trouble with experts, in Connecticut’s Inland Wetlands and Watercourses: Permit Denials, by the Connecticut Attorney General’s Office.
	Who Pays the Piper . . . Funding Professional Reviews in Wetlands Applications, by Mark K. Branse, Esq
	Errors as a matter of fact: trouble with experts, in Connecticut’s Inland Wetlands and Watercourses: Permit Denials, by the Connecticut Attorney General’s Office. Excerpt from The Habitat, Fall 2004

A New and Excellent Resource
Vernal Pools: Natural History and Conservation by Elizabeth A. Colburn.

Dr. Colburn is an aquatic ecologist with Harvard Forest, MA.  This book is the most comprehensive and substantive synthesis available on the natural history, ecology and conservation of these seasonally-wet pools that occur throughout much of North America. The pools of the formerly glaciated regions of eastern North America are emphasized, but the information on pool history, content, and ecology--and conservation issues relevant to vernal pools--is applicable to pools in any geographic region.  For more information, please visit the publisher’s web site at www.mwpubco.com/VernalPools.htm

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