Government

New Canaan Conservation Officials Push for Town Commitment to Clean, Renewable Energy

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Conservation officials are recommending that New Canaan commit itself to clean, renewable energy through a state program that could see the town qualify for grant money toward new systems.

Wilton already is a “Clean Energy Community” and most every town in lower Fairfield County (except New Canaan and Darien) have taken what’s called the “Clean Energy Communities Municipal Pledge”—a contract-free statement with no financial obligations to save energy in municipal buildings and voluntarily purchase renewable energy. (The program is overseen by Energize Connecticut, an effort backed by the Connecticut Energy Efficiency Fund, Clean Energy Finance and Investment Authority, state, and local electric and gas utilities.)

The New Canaan Conservation Commission at its most recent meeting voted unanimously to recommend that the Board of Selectmen authorize First Selectman Rob Mallozzi to sign the pledge. “I want to note that New Canaan had 94 points as of April and once you hit 100—and we may already have done that—that’s $10,000 toward an energy efficiency project,” Commissioner Mark Robbins said during the meeting, held in part inside the Lapham Community Center’s art room. Commission Chair Cam Hutchins said that if just six additional New Canaan residents had undergone energy audits since April, the town likely would qualify for the $10,000 in Bright Idea Grants. Robbins said that the funds could go toward projects such as electric vehicle charging, fuel conversion and solar insulation.

Government

Town Officials Gather Info on Single-Stream Recycling

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Town officials are trying to figure out whether and just how New Canaan could benefit by incorporating single-stream recycling into its solid waste collection system. Right now, residents sign on with private haulers to collect trash and (many) bring their own recyclables to the Transfer Station to sort them. In single-stream recycling, a contracted company could send a collection truck to pick up from a designated, distributed bin commingled paper, plastic, glass and other recyclable materials. The matter of single-stream recycling—for which New Canaanites voiced support in a recent Conservation Commission survey—arose at the most recent Board of Selectmen meeting. There, the selectmen approved a $31,000 one-year contract with City Carting to haul and dispose commingled recyclables from the Transfer Station (New Canaan through that contract gets an annual rebate of more than $27,000).

Government

Conservation Survey of New Canaanites: 61 Percent Favor Plastic Bag Ban

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The average New Canaan household cares far more than many might normally believe about conservation, town officials say. In a survey whose results recently were compiled by the Conservation Commission, 65 percent of respondents said they’d pay more for renewable resource energy, while those who would pay more for wind and solar outnumber those who wouldn’t by a 2-to-1 ratio. “This was not a small group of tree-huggers,” Conservation Commission Chair Cam Hutchins said during an interview after the group’s meeting Thursday night at Lapham Community Center. “This was a cross-section of New Canaanites—all ages, all walks of life. The fact that 35 percent of them didn’t know we had a recycling center says that these are not people who are ‘into’ recycling.”

Findings from the survey—summarized in the commission’s newsletter—include:

87 percent want more access to locally grown food;
63 percent want to learn more about home energy assessments;
96 would like their garbage company to take all recyclable materials;
and 61 percent would like to see the use of plastic bags prohibited.

Around Town

New Canaan Nature Center, Town, Businesses and Organizations Mark Earth Day 2014 [VIDEOS]

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“Where have those flowers and butterflies all gone

That science may have staked the future on?”

—from Robert Frost’s “Pod of the Milkweed”

 

The migration of monarch butterflies through New Canaan—and everywhere else along the East Coast—is happening less frequently in recent years, to the point where some are calling the insects’ once widely anticipated journey between the Northeast/Canada and Mexico “endangered.”

The major reason, experts say, is a lack of milkweed, which monarch caterpillars feed on. “The butterflies can go to all kinds of flowers for nectar, but the caterpillars can only eat milkweed plants. They’re having a hard time with loss of bio-habitat, so we are encouraging people in town to plant these free milkweed seeds,” Susan Bergen, a volunteer for the New Canaan Garden Club, said Tuesday morning from a table inside New Canaan Library. There, she and Jen Rayher (nee Sillo, a 1994 New Canaan High School graduate), director of membership and volunteers at the New Canaan Nature Center, handed out the seeds (“Got Milkweed?” on the packet) to mark Earth Day here in town. It’s one of several initiatives and events planned by the Nature Center for the next week, which New Canaan’s highest elected official today declared “Environmental Awareness Week 2014Week” (see video below).