Connecticut State Council on Environmental Quality

2024 CEQ Annual Report


Recommendations


Remedying the Deficiencies of Existing Programs and Activities

The Council acknowledges the efforts of the Governor and Legislature in enacting legislation in recent years to address the critically important issue of climate change. Consistent with its charge to recommend actions to improve state environmental programs, the Council recommends the following: 

  • Expand efforts to more aggressively reduce ozone and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions:
    • reduce the consumption of energy in all sectors;
    • expand the use of mass transit and electric-drive vehicles;
    • reduce solid waste and increase the diversion of solid waste;
    • support strategies identified in the State Implementation Plan to reduce ozone; and
    • increase the development and use of renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind.
  • Promote nature-based solutions that: 
    • restore coastal habitats;
    • protect potable water sources; 
    • increase carbon sequestration and protect forests and wetlands as carbon sinks;
    • meet open space and farmland preservation goals; and
    • and increase climate-smart agriculture and soil conservation.
  • Protect watershed land and water resources to protect drinking water sources, reduce hypoxia conditions in Long Island Sound, increase the area of productive shellfish beds, and eliminate the number of beach action days:
    • promote protective land use controls and establish and protect riparian buffers;
    • eliminate combined sewer overflows (CSOs) and sanitary sewer overflows (SSOs); 
    • reduce the use of pesticides and herbicides; and
    • reduce impervious surface area.

  • Enhance land preservation efforts, protect agricultural land and core forests, and increase and enhance municipal open space and parks:
    • expand the review of the “material affect” of energy projects on prime farmland soils and core forests, (see provisions of Public Act 17-218, section 3);
    • replace converted municipal open space/parks with comparable open space/parks; and
    • increase tree and forest canopy in urban areas.

  • Increase resources for DEEP and other agencies to:
    • provide program administration and assistance to municipal wetland officials and commissions;
    • enhance land preservation efforts for open space, forests, and farmland;
    • protect and enhance habitats for all of Connecticut’s flora and fauna; 
    • review, at least every five years, the designation of species as endangered, threatened or of special concern, and areas identified as essential habitats, consistent with the provisions of Connecticut General Statutes Section 26-307;
    • incorporate consideration of the rising sea level in project planning and funding in shoreline communities; and 
    • control the introduction and expansion of invasive species.