Connecticut River Coastal Conservation District

10/27/2026

Hello everyone! Please join us on November 8th at 2:30 pm in Middletown for our 79th Annual Meeting celebrating our 80th year! It's our first with our new Executive Director who will use this as an opportunity to introduce himself to the CRCCD family and members. We will hear from Kristen Columbo of the Janah Center about their work on Middletown's reclaimed landfill and how they are trying to turn it into a wildlife friendly park! Weather permitting, there will be a sunset tour of the capped landfill/park, from the highest point in the north end of town. Please RSVP by emailing [email protected] or call 860-346-3282! For more info, please see the flyer, call, or send us a message!

10/17/2026

If you're bored, like the cold, and would like to hang out at a reclaimed landfill in Middletown, check this out! Unrelatedly, our esteemed Director will be there leading an ecology walk around the park!

October 17th
2PM-5PM
Family friendly
FREE
(Rain date: Sunday, October 18th)

Register: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=N0b78tRR8keMsGvjq-yY4v0gFZXOTYdHuiFs0acJl7lUNDMxNDBOV0NYSjBUQjBTQTBCU0EyTzVSOC4u&route=shorturl
Or at www.jonahcenter.org

10/06/2026

Hello everyone! For those of you who are on LinkedIn, please feel follow our profile on there, which is newly revamped and has grown from 1 follower (our ED) to an earth-shattering 9 followers this month! You may not see any different content that you see here on Facebook, but you can still show your CRCCD pride and impress all of your future LinkedIn friends that you followed us back in the day when we were a scrappy underdog and before we were "cool."

Connecticut River Coastal Conservation District | 9 followers on LinkedIn. Promoting the sound use and management of natural resources in south-central Connecticut. | The Connecticut River Coastal Conservation District (CRCCD) is set up under state statute as a nonprofit organization whose charge is...

09/28/2026

Next Monday evening at 7:00pm is a free screening of the award-winning film Singing Back the Buffalo at the Goldsmith Family Cinema in Middletown. Our very own Executive Director will co-lead a discussion after the film! To preregister, please visit https://rockfallfoundation.org/event/singing-back-the-buffalo/. See the poster for more details!

09/25/2026

Excited to share that our Executive Director, Kevin Burgio, has been selected for the 2027 class of the Soil and Water Conservation Society's Emerging Leaders Program. Maybe one day, he'll actually live up to his coffee mug!

Learn more about what he’ll be up to at www.swcs.org/elp and see the press release: https://www.swcs.org/resources/news/2026-emerging-leaders-graduate-as-swcs-introduces-the-2027-cohort.

"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take. - Wayne Gretzky" - Michael Scott

08/25/2026

A great opportunity to get the training you need to volunteer to go mucking about in our streams and learn about the health of our watersheds! Also, CRCCD's new Director will be there, helping with the training!

Curious about the health of our streams? Want to spend time outside this fall?

Join us for a morning of training and become part of a statewide riffle bioassessment volunteer stream monitoring program.

Registration limited. Email [email protected] or [email protected] to register.

What is a stream assessment?
Stream assessments use aquatic benthic macroinvertebrates (water bugs) to assess stream health.

What will I do?
Assist Eightmile & Salmon River staff in collecting, sorting and identifying macroinvertebrates.

When is it?
Training: September 12th, 8:30am-1:30pm
Future Volunteer Opportunities: Generally, weekends from September through November.

Where is it?
Classroom Training: Eightmile Office. 2 Dolbia Hill Road, East Haddam
Field Training: Devil's Hopyard State Park
Future Volunteer Opportunities: East Haddam, Lyme, Salem, Colchester, East Lyme, Bolton, Columbia, East Hampton, Glastonbury, Haddam, Hebron, Lebanon, and Marlborough

08/18/2026

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Kevin Burgio has joined us as our next Executive Director! He takes over the position from long-time Executive Director Jane Brawerman, who retired at the end of July after 34 years of service to the District.

A resident of Connecticut since 1988, USAF veteran, and Certified Senior Ecologist, Kevin holds a PhD from the University of Connecticut in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and comes to us with a wide range of skills and knowledge in the conservation field. A skilled science communicator, he most recently worked with the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and communities across the state where he led the writing of the 2025 Wildlife Action Plan. CRCCD services the 26 towns in the lower Connecticut River watershed and adjacent coastal watersheds and he is looking forward to working with the towns and residents to build on the current programs. As a member of his local inland wetland commission, he has first-hand knowledge of the local land use process in our state. Kevin can be reached at [email protected].

The Board and staff of CRCCD welcome Kevin and hope that the residents and municipalities we serve will join us in this welcome. We are looking forward to building on the programs we provide to our communities. We also want to give a big thank you to Jane Brawerman for her dedication and long-time service to CRCCD and the community we serve. Bravo Jane and congratulations on your retirement!

07/06/2026

I know we need the rain, but what happens to water quality when we get an intense rainstorm like we're experiencing now? While flooding is a real risk, we should also be concerned about how storm events can worsen water quality. Stormwater runs off the land, carrying pollutants like fertilizers, sediments, bacteria, toxic chemicals like pesticides, and trash into our rivers, streams, lakes, ponds and Long Island Sound. Sources can include lawns, roads, parking lots, construction sites, roofs and farms. These pollutants contribute to what we call nonpoint source pollution, which is difficult to address because the sources are diffuse and numerous, unlike point source pollution, which can originate from an industrial plant discharge pipe. What can we do to be better stewards and protect our local water resources? Check out our backyard water resources guide at https://www.conservect.org/ctrivercoastal/resources/ for some simple, safe and environmentally sound practices for lawn and landscape care, septic system maintenance, hazardous household product use, erosion prevention and stormwater runoff control!
(image credit: NC Dept. of Natural and Cultural Resources)

06/01/2026

There are still some spots available in our Saturday, June 6 seminar in partnership with Native Plant Trust, How to Choose Competitive Native Ground Covers, with instructor Kathy Connolly of Speaking of Landscapes. The seminar will be held from 1:30–3:30 PM at deKoven House, 27 Washington Street, Middletown.

Come learn how plants compete for space and survival, about native plants that cover ground effectively, and experience firsthand how to observe and identify some of their competitive traits with sample plants from the Native Plant Trust greenhouses. A PDF handout will be included.

Space is limited and advance registration is required at www.nativeplanttrust.org/events/how-to-choose-competitive-native-ground-covers/. The event fee is $40.

For more information, contact us at [email protected] or 860-346-3282.

We hope you can join us!

Photos: Kathy Connolly (Heal all, Woodland stonecrop, Wild strawberries)

05/14/2026

We hope you can join the Conservation District and Native Plant Trust for the seminar, How to Choose Competitive Native Ground Covers, with instructor Kathy Connolly of Speaking of Landscapes. The seminar will be held on Saturday, June 6, 2026, 1:30–3:30 PM at deKoven House, 27 Washington Street, Middletown. Kathy is a landscape designer, writer, and speaker who emphasizes earth-friendly designs, use of native plants, and low-impact land care techniques.

At the seminar you’ll learn how to leverage native plants' natural competitive strategies to your advantage. You’ll hear about seven ways all plants compete for space and survival, and then learn about natives that cover ground effectively. You'll also have the opportunity to handle some ground covering plant samples from the Native Plant Trust greenhouses and experience firsthand how to observe and identify some of the competitive traits, and how to research others. A PDF handout will be included.

Space is limited and advance registration is required. The event fee is $40. Please register at https://www.nativeplanttrust.org/events/how-to-choose-competitive-native-ground-covers/

For more information, contact us at [email protected], or 860-346-3282.

We hope you can join us!

Photo credit: Kathy Connolly
Common violet is a versatile ground cover that readily fills many types of spaces