If the folks who run New England’s electricity transmission grid get their way there’s a good chance you’ll be looking at higher electric bills come New Year’s. But it won’t be without a fight. Three Connecticut state agencies have joined three other New England states to protest a proposed 10 percent budget increase by ISO-New […]
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 inNews
Shoreline infrastructure upgrades unlikely even after second storm in 14 months
Guilford –– On a damp, dreary post-Sandy, post-add-insult-to-injury snowstorm afternoon, Guilford Town Planner George Kral surveyed the intersection of state road 146, also called Leetes Island Road, and Sachem’s Head Road. “It floods at extreme high tides under normal conditions and it floods even more significantly during storms,” he said, pointing to where 146 runs […]
Posted inEnergy & Environment, Health
CT snares only one USDA Farm to School grant
Given Connecticut’s bear-hug embrace of the local food movement, you might have expected the state to have been all over the U.S. Department of Agriculture‘s new Farm to School grant program. And you would have especially expected that because: 1. There was some serious money involved, and 2. Much of the grant focus was on […]
Posted inEnergy & Environment, Money
Energy efficiency deals available for Sandy victims
A bit of a silver lining in the post-Sandy cloud. Connecticut residents and businesses that lost major appliances due to the storm will be eligible for financial incentives to upgrade them to more energy efficient models. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy announced today that the state will provide $3 million to fund the upgrades for appliances […]
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Extent of Sandy’s impact on oysters still unknown
It’s likely to be another week before Connecticut’s oyster industry knows how hard it was hit by storm Sandy. Shellfish beds were closed on Oct. 28, the day before Sandy struck and have yet to reopen, so oystermen have really not been able to survey their beds. But Dave Carey, director of the Aquaculture Bureau […]
Posted inEnergy & Environment, Money, Politics
Election adds to shake-up on Energy and Technology Committee
The touch of shake-up the election gave to the General Assembly is likely to have an outsized effect on the Energy and Technology Committee. But it’s not clear yet — and likely won’t be until next year — just what that effect will be. Energy co-chairwoman Rep. Vickie Nardello, D-Prospect, was a surprise loser in her […]
Posted inEnergy & Environment, Politics
Would Mr. Esty head (back) to Washington?
With Elizabeth Esty now headed to Washington as the state’s newest member of Congress, it’s somewhat logical to wonder whether her husband Dan — the commissioner of the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection — might also head there where here served for a number of years in the Environmental Protection Agency. Apparently this occurred […]
Posted inNews
Bird habitats feel Sandy’s effects
As with Tropical Storm Irene, the effect of storm Sandy on the bird population of Connecticut and its habitats may not be known until next year’s nesting season. But the folks who keep an eye on these things think there will be both good and bad news then. A Great Frigatebird glides overhead The one thing […]
Posted inEnergy & Environment, Money
Seawalls: fix first, file later
As it did after Tropical Storm Irene, the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection is temporarily streamlining the repair and rebuilding of certain seawalls, bulkheads and revetments damaged or destroyed by Storm Sandy. For previously permitted structures that were built before 1995 or are protecting a home or infrastructure that was built before 1995, owners […]
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Anxiety over new arts grant program
When Hamden artist Cat Balco was planning her “Ellipses” project last year — a health care and arts collaboration to help patients cope with their illnesses — she knew exactly what the state of Connecticut had to offer her for grant funding. Nothing. The new state arts grants program means the Ellipses Project, a collaboration of […]
Posted inEnergy & Environment, Money
Rush to meet Plum Island comment deadline
Environmental groups in Connecticut and New York are scrambling to meet a Friday deadline to submit comments on a draft environmental impact statement for the sale of Plum Island by the federal government. Their collective consensus — with some nuanced differences — is that most, if not all, of the island, located in the New […]
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Prescriptions for produce helping to cut obesity
New Haven — Yesika Gonzalez and her boyfriend are loaded with nearly a dozen heavy bags of produce from the farmers’ market in this city’s Fair Haven section. “Corn, peppers, tomatoes, potatoes, too many fruits, apples, pears,” she ticks off in an accent that is still heavy with traces of her native Puerto Rico. “I […]
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New energy strategy focuses on natural gas and efficiency
Even before the Malloy administration’s release Friday morning of the state’s first Comprehensive Energy Strategy, concerns emerged among the environmental community and other organizations about a cornerstone of the plan — widespread conversion of homes and businesses to natural gas. Chief among them is that natural gas’s historic low prices will not last and that consumers […]
Posted inEnergy & Environment, Money
More bad air days in Connecticut
All that complaining you did about the hot, smoggy summer — turns out you had every reason to whine. Preliminary data from the Environmental Protection Agency shows that from April to September, Connecticut had the worst air quality in New England with the number of bad air days nearly doubling since last year. For the […]
Posted inEnergy & Environment, Money
GAO on climate change and power grid case
The Government Accountability Office has been called on by Congress to have a look at the how well the nation’s energy infrastructure can handle the ramifications of climate change. The Senate Environment and Public Works committee’s Oversight Subcommittee and the Senate Finance Committee requested the work, according to a letter sent to the Nuclear Regulatory […]