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The Sound and the Fury
Soundkeeper and state legislator Terry Backer balances politics and pride
in a high-water mark for Long Island Sound's environmental health
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Business New Haven
8/10/98
By: BNH
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Terrance E. Backer, a former lobsterman and oysterman, is Connecticut's Long Island Soundkeeper - the official watchdog of Long Island Sound. He is also a Democratic state representative for the 121st assembly district, representing his home town of Stratford.
What is a Soundkeeper and how
did this position get started?
My job is as the executive director of the Long Island Sound Fund Inc. Our mission is to protect and enhance the biological, physical and chemical integrity of Long Island Sound. My job is to be the eyes and the ears of the Sound, and to help ferret out pollution problems and any other problems not being addressed. I try to get agencies of the government to address these problems. My job is to see to the abatement of pollution, not just the fining of polluters. The area that we take care of goes from Watch Hill, R.I. all the way to the Battery in New York City. We have an office in Oyster Bay, R.I. and one in Norwalk. We also deal with inland issues that directly affect the health of the Sound. But mainly we deal with the New Haven area and west to New York City.
What did you do for a living
previously?
I used to be a lobsterman/oysterman, I guess, all-around waterman, and I was involved in starting the Connecticut Coastal Fisherman's Association. That organization had a hand in several lawsuits brought against municipalities which were flagrantly violating the clean water permits. One of the suits brought a $150,000 settlement, of which $75,000 went to establishing a watchdog of the Sound job that has since become the Soundkeeper.
How is your work paid for?
Now it is mainly funded by foundations that are interested in the environment, such as the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation, Fairfield County Community Trust, New Haven Community Foundation, Beach International Foundation, as well as the membership contributions. Litigation settlements from other organizations are helpful also.
What is state of health of Long Island Sound today?
It is better than it ever has been, I think. The pollution problems that we are dealing with now is mainly polluted run-off from land-based activities - they are mostly transportation-related. Also, the natural constituents of the marshland are gone. One hundred thousand acres [of wetlands] have been eliminated from the Sound, leaving only about 17,000 acres in Connecticut. No wetlands, no fish. It's that simple. The biggest problem, though, is nutrient-loading from sewage-treatment plants - in particular nitrogen. We do need nitrogen to live, but too much of anything has a negative reaction. The result is the death of fish and other marine organisms. Seven or eight years have been spent studying this and it is now in the implementation end of it. They are trying to remove 58.5 percent of the human-generated point sources of nitrogen.
What can be done about the run
off problem?
That's a tough call. Our transportation system is highly dependent on personal automobiles, and all of those cars are dripping oil. The nitrogen and other pollutants that we put into the air are coming back down because of atmospheric deposition, and those all end up in Long Island Sound. In the long run, the real issue is that we need a large-scale behavior modification/education program for our citizenry. I think this is the only way we can contain the run-off problem.
Tell us about the animosity between New York City and Connecticut on this issue?
I can't say that [New York has] done a bad job in collecting their data about the Sound, because that haven't. I just think that they haven't collected enough data to really do a complete job. We sued New York City for violations of their clean water permits pertaining to nitrogen-loading in Long Island Sound on the Brooklyn end. Governor [John G.] Rowland asked Attorney General [Richard] Blumenthal to bring the case, so Blumenthal asked us if they could intervene in our case as an interested party. Interestingly enough, the state of New York filed [a lawsuit] the same day in state court against New York City. No one likes people looking over their shoulder, so New York state was trying to get us out of the picture. This situation has not been resolved yet.
What about involvement on the part of the federal government?
We have been getting mixed messages from the federal government on this. They did not bring a case and, if they had we, by federal law, would not have been able to.
Are there any new or unusual proposals out there to motivate polluters to clean up their act?
There are a number of programs that give awards to companies with outstanding records in accomplishments in reducing pollution or preventing pollution. I feel that leaving clean water and a better place to live for your descendants is a reward enough on its own, but sometimes people need help getting there. So I view the [state's] Department of Environmental Protection [DEP] as an implement to help people get where they need to go.
How has the Sound's improvement affected the fishing industry?
Well, some shellfish grounds that were previously closed have now been opened as well as the reduction of beach closures. The recovery of fisheries and wetlands is going to take much longer, however. We need to solve the water-chemistry issues, which means reductions of what we are putting in there. We have some long-standing environmentally appropriate uses that we should be preserving rather than looking at them as a casualty of what some would call progress.
Do you feel that your message is getting across to the general public?
Well, a lot of people know about [the Sound] and a lot of people use it, but the Sound is an orphan even though it is our equivalent to Yellowstone Park. It is our national park; we have no great public natural resource that even comes close to the diversity of Long Island Sound. I think people in New York and Connecticut take it for granted. All our organizations combined probably only have about 15,000 members and yet one [similar out-of-state] organization, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, has 75,000. We're not tuned into the resource that we have and our individual responsibility to it.
What made you decide to run for
the state legislature?
I must have been struck by a bolt of lightening or something. The person who had the position before me called me and said that he was retiring after almost 20 years there. He had a great interest in the Great Meadows marsh and that was one of the reasons he had run for office in the 1970s. He wanted a successor who was interested in the same things and who could see that they were protected, at least from a local standpoint. I thought I could do as good a job as anyone else, so I ran and I won.
What are the principal legislative issues or initiatives that are most important to your job as
Soundkeeper?
Well, they come and they go. The ongoing one is to procure enough money from the bonding acts to capitalize municipalities to continue their efforts to reduce pollution from sewage treatment plants, nitrogen reduction, storm water separation and filtration.
What would be the economic
impact of a really clean and more pristine Long Island Sound
environment on the state?
Ten years ago the University of Connecticut's Department of Agriculture & Economics did a valuing for Long Island Sound. The number they came up with was $5 billion per year of economic benefits from the Sound. That was for the state it was in ten years ago. It is in much better health now, and [includes] a lot of things you can't put a price on. How do you put a price on going to the beach with a bunch of six-year-olds and letting them go swimming for the day? If you force me to put a price on it, the University of Connecticut said $5 billion annually. Think about what is that over 40, 50, 60 years. What would anybody do to get a $5 billion engine into their state?
What keeps the progress going?
The political will, I think, is almost always driven from the public will. If the public wants something done and they are communicative about it, politicians will respond more often than people believe. The future of Long Island Sound is in the hands of the citizenry, not the hands of the politicians.
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