Two well-intentioned environmental polices – one encouraging more renewable power and the other the preservation of farms and forestland – are colliding. They are pitting farmer against farmer and environmental interest groups against one another, putting state departments at odds, and raising the always explosive issue of private property rights versus state policy.
Jan Ellen Spiegel
Jan Ellen is CT Mirror's regular freelance Environment and Energy Reporter. As a freelance reporter, her stories have also appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Yale Climate Connections, and elsewhere. She is a former editor at The Hartford Courant, where she handled national politics including coverage of the controversial 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. She was an editor at the Gazette in Colorado Springs and spent more than 20 years as a TV and radio producer at CBS News and CNN in New York and in the Boston broadcast market. In 2013 she was the recipient of a Knight Journalism Fellowship at MIT on energy and climate. She graduated from the University of Michigan and attended Boston University’s graduate film program.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
CT gets good news for now on its EPA grants
At least for the near term, the major EPA grants to the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection will keep flowing despite a freeze and review of contracts and grants by the Trump administration.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
CT works on a new energy strategy as old one misses the mark
The three-year update to Connecticut’s Comprehensive Energy Strategy, underway now, faces dramatically changed energy, environmental and political landscapes that raise questions about whether the first strategy, with its focus on natural gas, may have partially wasted the last three years.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Above the waves, Connecticut fishermen struggle to hang on
Shifting fish species have Connecticut fishermen in an emotional dispute over how the U.S. fishing system operates. They’re calling, if not downright begging, for immediate changes to fish allocations to save the state’s fishing industry from what many believe is its inevitable ruin. But others in the scientific and environmental communities are saying – maybe not so fast.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Beneath the waves, climate change puts marine life on the move
Climate change-induced shifts of marine species in the Northeast are forcing changes in fishing patterns for Connecticut fishermen, threatening to upend fishing management systems and generating political controversy and finger-pointing as policies struggle to keep up with the pace of fish movement, and the Connecticut fishing community struggles to hang on.
Posted inEnergy & Environment, Money
Green Bank raid upsets business, environmental communities
The raid on the Green Bank and other clean energy programs to help plug the state’s huge budget deficit is bringing together groups often at odds. Environmentalists and business interests, including the state’s most prominent business lobby, agree the raid is a bad idea.
Posted inEnergy & Environment, Politics
Recycling food waste in Connecticut: Slow as molasses
Five years after legislative initiatives designed to do something about the large amount of food waste in Connecticut’s trash, very little has been implemented, and the food waste problem is getting bigger. A lot bigger.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
A shifting ground for artificial turf in Connecticut
A number of cancer cases around the country among young athletes who played on artificial turf fields made with a crumb rubber filler have spurred calls for further research into the safety of the fields.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Shared solar program in Connecticut stalled over who pays for what
Connecticut’s shared solar pilot program has already missed its first deadline and faces even more delays. In the meantime, arguments over how to pay for clean energy are bubbling up again.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Connecticut getting $54 million in ‘disaster resilience’ money
Bridgeport and the new administration of Mayor Joe Ganim appear to be the biggest beneficiaries of $54.2 million in federal funds awarded Thursday to Connecticut to help Fairfield and New Haven counties better prepare for coastal flooding and climate change.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Massive rail plan leaves Connecticut hopeful but mystified
Proposals to reinvent the Northeast Corridor rail system could impact Connecticut more than any other state. But a lack of detail in the plans is causing exasperation even among those who have been pushing for rail improvements for decades, and it has environmentalists worrying whether losses will outweigh the benefits.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Winter power, gas supplies, new pipelines – a volatile mix in CT
Another winter, another warning from the folks who run the power grid that natural gas shortages could cause power problems. The warning once again focuses all eyes on natural gas pipelines – viewed as either a big answer to the region’s power difficulties or a big problem, depending on whom you talk to.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Bridgeport election sparks anxiety over big environmental plans
BRIDGEPORT — With Mayor Bill Finch leaving office soon, there is concern for the incomplete environmental projects in his BGreeen 2020 initiative. Some worry that Mayor-elect Joseph P. Ganim, who campaigned on cutting taxes, could choose to pull the plug on some of the projects – especially those that involve city money.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Herbicide finding intensifies battle over GMO labeling
More than two years after passing the nation’s first law requiring labels on most foods containing genetically engineered components, there are still no labels for Genetically Modified Organisms – GMOs – in Connecticut or anywhere else in the U.S. But GMO labeling advocates now have some new ammunition for a counter-offensive.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
CT’s repeat flood damage dilemma: move out or rebuild?
Thousands of Connecticut homes have been repeatedly damaged by flooding due to storms. costing the government millions in insurance claims. The losses are now causing some to question the wisdom of policies that encourage rebuilding. They say that with climate change, those properties will grow more vulnerable and money would be better spent moving people out. So far, however, few homeowners are interested.