Tidewater Institute

The Tidewater Institute is a new initiative designed to address key threats to the internationally significant natural resources of the Connecticut River Estuary at a critical time in its history. TI seeks to work with existing state, federal and non-profit organizations on the River to 1) bring Estuary communities together to create a shared vision that unites River towns and results in collaborative resource protection and management, 2) provide ecological education that is specific to the extraordinary natural resources of the Estuary region and geared toward land use commissioners, private land owners and conservation volunteers and 3) provide specific and targeted information to land use decision makers through publications and a website that also links to other existing organizations and resources, and provide assistance for seeking grant funds to protect Estuary natural resources.

Winding its way from the northern reaches of Vermont and New Hampshire, four hundred and ten miles southward to Long Island Sound, the Connecticut River is at once New England’s largest, longest, at its mouth the widest, and arguably the most decorated for its scenic, historic, and particularly ecological merits. Its watershed encompasses over seven million acres and is home to countless species, including in the estuary alone, seven globally rare and forty-three state listed-species, as well as an estimated eight million people. The Connecticut River is the largest single contributor of vital freshwater to the Estuary of Long Island Sound – itself a water body of national significance.

Land use decisions in Connecticut are made very much at the local, community level. Voluntary commissions exercise control over the density, size, location and activity of municipal development. These commissions, exercising the very fundamental and time-honored rights of local rule, are making decisions every day that result in the way the Estuary region develops as a whole. Conservation Commissions within Estuary towns often struggle to survive, and yet these non-regulatory working groups are charged with the essential foundation task of identifying and protecting each town’s natural resources. These decisions have long-term impacts that affect not only the integrity of the natural resources for which the Estuary region has been recognized, but also the present and future quality of life for the towns along the River.

Tidewater Institute is currently housed in the CRERPA office. For more information please contact Judy Preston at: