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The Connecticut Environmental Policy Act is the state law that requires environmental evaluation of proposed state-funded projects. It is a planning tool intended to provide for the evaluation of more than one proposed site to determine the best site for both the environment and the facility. The Act also provides for an early review of any environmental impacts of proposed projects and identification of ways to avoid or mitigate those impacts. Over the years, the steps envisioned by the Act’s authors have tended to be short-circuited by agencies, who frequently use the Act to explain and document the impact of sitting decisions already made and not as a planning tool, as was intended.

In 2002, Audubon Connecticut successfully worked with a coalition of other environmental groups (CEPA Working Group) to improve the requirements for environmental impact evaluations including assessment of cumulative impacts, an early public scoping process, better public notice and improved opportunity for public input. The passage of these revisions to the Policy Act is a major accomplishment. However, work remains to be done on the enforcement of mitigation plans approved under the Act.

Football and Birds: The Rentschler Field Example
Enforcement of mitigation plans is of particular importance to Audubon as these plans are designed to compensate for environmental impacts associated with approved state-funded projects. This is a critical issue right now with respect to the construction of the new UConn Stadium at Rentschler Field in East Hartford which is home to the largest population of grassland bird species in the state, including 9 threatened and endangered bird species that rely on this area for breeding, feeding and nursery grounds. Some of these birds nest in only one other location in the state—Bradley International Airport—habitat also threatened by airport expansion plans. The continued existence of these 9 species of grasslands birds is at risk in CT.

The mitigation plan for the stadium, which is being constructed on 75-acres of critical habitat, includes provision of over 200 acres of comparable habitat in the nearby communities of Somers and Enfield. In this particular case, construction of the replacement grasslands is well underway, however, it will take several years for the new grasslands to become established enough to attract and support grassland birds and there is no guarantee that the project will succeed. This raises several questions about the oversight, monitoring and enforcement of mitigation plans approved as part of the CEPA process:

Audubon’s preliminary research indicates that, currently, there is no mechanism in place to ensure that mitigation plans like the one for Rentschler Field are enforced and that they successfully provide alternative habitat for critical species, as intended. In fact, no one can tell us how many mitigation plans have been approved under the Policy Act, let alone whether they have been implemented or whether they have resulted in the intended benefit. Clearly, no one is minding the store!

Questions about the oversight, monitoring and enforcement of mitigation plans approved as part of the CEPA process:

Does current state law provide any agency with the authority or responsibility to monitor whether mitigation plans approved as part of the CEPA process are actually carried out?

• If approved plans are not carried out, what authority exists to compel the sponsoring agency to do so?
• If a plan is carried out but fails to have the intended benefit, what recourse exists for corrective action?

What can be done to make sure that mitigation plans actually work?

• Assign clear authority to OPM or DEP to ensure that approved mitigation actions are actually carried out.
• Work with the Council on Environmental Quality to research statistics on number of mitigation plans and whether they have been implemented.

The Connecticut Environmental Protection Act allows individuals and organizations to pursue legal action in cases where a proposed development project would cause serious harm to the environment. Prior to 1971, when the Act was passed, the public was routinely denied access to the courts in cases where the public interest in the environment was at risk. The Protection Act changed all that, basically guaranteeing that the public could participate in major environmental decisions being made by local and state agencies and in the courts. This powerful tool has been used over and over again to make bad projects less environmentally damaging and to prevent altogether some projects that would have affected irreplaceable resources. Over the past several years, however, major state projects have been exempted from the provisions of the Act.

• Prevent attempts to circumvent Connecticut's Environmental Protection Act—the law that enables groups and individuals to intervene in proposed development projects to protect the public interest in the environment.

Audubon Connecticut, an operating unit of the National Audubon Society with
over 13,000 members in the state, works to protect birds, other wildlife
and their habitats through education, research, conservation and legislative advocacy.