Today's Events
9:00am - Climate Resilient Infrastructure: Building a More Sustainable Future
FEMA and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are partnering for a full-day summit, exploring resilient infrastructure challenges and innovative solutions through discussions on the recently published National Resilience Guidance, nature-based solutions, energy efficiency, net-zero energy and sustainable disaster debris management. This summit is an opportunity to examine resilient infrastructure challenges and innovative solutions. Attendees will get to hear from FEMA and public, private, and academic partners on a number of topics.
9:00am - CT Department of Transportation: Electric Buses Webinar
The Department of Transportation's initiatives to improve sustainability and resiliency include electrification of our most heavily used vehicles. This presentation will highlight the upgrades we have taken to electrify buses and associated facilities as well other vehicles.
10:00am - Aligning Climate Resilience and Hazard Mitigation Planning in Southeastern CT
Southeastern Connecticut became the first region in the state to build long-term climate resilience and adaptation into its FEMA-approved plan, resulting in the 2023 Multi-Jurisdictional Hazard Mitigation and Climate Adaptation Plan (HMCAP). We welcome you to join in a discussion of the climate resilience elements that differentiate the HM-CAP from a traditional Hazard Mitigation Plan, and how local, regional, and partnership efforts have pivoted from planning to the implementation of specific HM-CAP Actions, especially in the areas of flooding and extreme heat mitigation.
10:30am - Roadmap to Resilience: Driving Resilience Improvement and Investment in Fair Haven—and Beyond
As extreme weather events become more frequent and severe, Connecticut residents, businesses, and municipalities must urgently invest in climate resilience. Over the past decade, municipalities like the City of New Haven have taken initial steps to plan for the impacts of climate change. This session will highlight Resilient Fair Haven, hearing from the City of New Haven and its partners— including the Connecticut Institute for Resilience and Climate Adaptation (CIRCA) and Connecticut Green Bank—about challenges and opportunities to address issues of flooding, extreme heat, and to increase climate resilient investments in vulnerable communities. We’ll hear about lessons learned from those efforts as well as new tools and solutions like "Resilience Improvement Districts" to accelerate climate resilience action in the next decade.
12:00pm - Source Water Protection and Emerging Contaminants
Join us during Source Water Protection Week for this important workshop that both celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) and looks at the challenges ahead. The program will provide an overview of the SDWA and how it provides for protecting drinking water quality at the source. Our discussion will then focus on water quality challenges and two emerging contaminants that are forever chemicals: PFAS and 1,4-dioxane.
12:00pm - Improving Connecticut’s Coastal Resilience through Natural Ecosystems
Connecticut's coastline contains natural ecosystems that provide essential habitat to native birds, fish, and other wildlife. These ecosystems also play a critical role in protecting coastal communities and making them more resilient to climate change impacts such as storm surge, erosion, and inundation. During this webinar, we will discuss how climate change impacts our coasts and present Audubon's work to restore coastal habitat for birds and people in our region.
12:30pm and 3:30pm - Net-Zero and Beyond: Sustainability at Southern CT State University (#1)
Join a sustainability walking tour of Southern CT State University in New Haven. Learn about Southern's climate and sustainability commitment, visiting CT's first state-owned net-zero building (School of Business), the LEED Gold Academic and Laboratory Science Building, and Southern's 4.6 MW solar and fuel cell arrays. Park at the Wintergreen Garage, which is a short walk to the meeting location. The tour will start at the School of Business entrance, located at the corner of Wintergreen and Farnham Avenues. This event is free and open to the public.
1-hour sessions begin at 12:30 and 3:30 pm. This event covers approximately 1 mile.
1:00pm - Connecticut and the Climate Economy
Combatting climate change and pursuit of Connecticut's decarbonizations goals will create a wide variety of new economic opportunities. Join representatives of the CT Department of Economic & Community Development, the CT Office of the Clean Economy, Connecticut Innovations and climate tech incubator ClimateHaven for a wideranging discussion on the business and job creation opportunities that are emerging in the sustainability & resiliency spheres. No registration is necessary
2:30pm - Using State Sustainability and Resilience Data
The session will cover ways to access state data on sustainability and resilience, through the state's open data and GIS transparency efforts. Learn how to use the open data portal (data.ct.gov), the geodata portal (geodata.ct.gov), what kinds of data are collected and posted to each, including new data on parcels, properties and aerial imagery data.
Organization Highlights
DOT Resilience Improvement Plan
The Connecticut Department of Transportation (CTDOT) is developing a Resilience Improvement Plan (RIP) to help identify climate-related vulnerabilities and prioritize solutions across the agency’s multi-modal transportation network. The plan will be conducted in two phases. Phase one will conduct a risk-based vulnerability assessment that draws on existing and future climate data to rank vulnerability of state-owned assets. In the second phase, CTDOT will develop an implementation plan identifying potential projects, timelines, and cost-estimates.
A survey is open to the public to provide feedback on what types of projects CTDOT should consider to improve resiliency across the state. Please complete by October 4. Please email any questions to DOTresilience@ct.gov.
Office of Policy & Management
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