On Sunday, November 19, 2019, Pete Spain received ACCA’s first environmental award for his environmental leadership in bringing community coalitions to lead two major ongoing projects – the Unified Water Study and the Park Restoration in addition to many other initiatives.
The Unified Water Study is an EPA-funded scientific study of harbors and embayments in Long Island Sound. The findings will be used by the DEEP, EPA, and organizations, such as Save the Sound to improve water quality. Thanks to Pete’s leadership, we were able to buy our way into the study by purchasing the monitoring equipment needed and joined 21 other organizations in this study. Kevin Blagys of KB Dive Services has taken the lead on the water quality monitoring in Black Rock Harbor and is working with students from the Aquaculture School on this project.
Pete also created an ongoing dialogue with the community and experts in wildlife and tidal wetlands to restore the park near the sand spit, which had been called “the bird sanctuary” or “Capozzi Park” but finally received the official name of “The Preserve at St. Mary’s.” More than $25,000 has been raised to date for the restoration project. NATIVE put the final trees in this past week and the fence will go up in a few weeks. We will have an update on the Park Restoration project in our next update.
Pete also led multiple volunteer clean ups throughout Black Rock, which removed almost half a ton of rubbish from the Black Rock community. Trash ends up in our storm drains and water ways, so this is very much an environmental issue, which ACCA has emphasized in our Rooster River watershed outreach talks to the public.
Pete also assisted Madeline Raleigh, of Black Rock in the Know, in her efforts to persuade the City to adopt a new mowing plan that would not disturb the nesting osprey on the Arthur Street platform and in her leadership of the CT Audubon sponsored fishing recycling bin project, which ACCA supported through donations and volunteers.
The awards event was filled to capacity and Pete’s mom and sister were there along with over 70 members of the community and Christine Woodside, the reporter from the CT Post who wrote the three part series on Black Rock Harbor’s sewage problem. She plans to continue to follow this issue and we hope there will be more articles to keep awareness of this problem in the forefront.
After a slide show of Pete’s environmental initiatives over the past two years, ACCA Board member, Donna Curran, who had also served on the City Council, explained why Pete’s initiatives were so extraordinary given the way the city operates. Gail Robinson, President of ACCA, handed Pete the award and Kraig Steffen, VP of ACCA, gave Pete a gift on behalf of ACCA – a stylized lawn sculpture of a blue heron. Pete personally thanked everyone who participated with him or donated funds to these causes over the past two years by naming every person. He then asked everyone to note the small gift from Kate on each table which were milkweed seeds. He explained how to plant them so that we can all provide food and a habitat for the larva of monarch butterflies in the Spring.
It was a wonderful evening with so much warmth and appreciation for Pete (and Kate), as well as a chance for many people to reconnect with one another over good food (cheese from Fairfield Cheese Shop, shrimp from Whole Foods, cookies from Harborview Market, and much more) and beverages (cash bar).
