Stamford Highlights Climate Resilience Planning Grant Funds

STAMFORD, CT — Last Friday, Stamford Mayor Caroline Simmons, other city officials and Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) Commissioner Katie Dykes appropriately gathered at Cummings Beach to tout the $1.29 million grant the city received to support three separate climate resilience planning projects.

The funds were part of the inaugural round of $8.8 million in CT-DEEP Climate Resilience Fund grants that were announced by Gov. Ned Lamont earlier this summer. Overall, the state is supporting 21 innovative climate resilience plans and projects across 17 municipalities.

"We are on Long Island Sound, we are a coastal city so we are acutely aware of the impacts of climate change and rising sea levels. One of my main priorities as mayor is to improve our infrastructure and make our city a more resilient and sustainable city for future generations to come," Simmons said in brief remarks.

Stamford will use $481,125 to identify ways to reduce stormwater flooding in the Cummings Pond watershed, including the Cove and East Side neighborhoods. The city will also develop initial designs for those measures.

Tyler Theder, Stamford's regulatory compliance and administrative officer in the Stormwater Management Department, noted that part of the drainage piping in the area was originally built in 1936 and 1937 as part of the Works Progress Administration in President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal.

Theder pointed to the plan to reduce stormwater flooding in the Cummings Pond watershed. He

Another project will focus on evaluating flooding issues in the Toilsome Brook watershed and developing recommendations, including "daylighting," or physically uncovering and restoring part of the stream, improving the drainage system, and potentially relocating or elevating buildings and infrastructure. Stamford will put $598,125 towards this work.

The third grant, worth $210,750, will be used to develop a hyper-local extreme heat plan for the downtown, West Side and Waterside neighborhoods.

Simmons said the ultimate goal is to identify actionable next steps and potential funding mechanisms to deploy more tree canopies across the city and reduce the effects of heat and rising temperatures.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration recently announced that this summer was the hottest on record. In Stamford and across the state at the beginning of this month, schools had to be dismissed early because of dangerously high temperatures.

According to information from the mayor's office, by 2050, Connecticut could see upwards of 20 additional days each year where the high temperature exceeds 90 degrees.

Theder and Simmons said they hope to start work on the planning projects as soon as possible. The projects were unimaginable to Theder just a decade ago.

"I've been in this role for about 10 years, and 10 years ago I wasn't sure a day like this would even happen," Theder said.

As the commissioner for CT-DEEP, Dykes said she talks about climate all the time.

"But this summer, this year, really feels different," she said.

"Every week this summer it feels like we've been facing really unusual circumstances," Dykes added, mentioning wildfire smoke and air quality issues, extreme heat, and extreme flooding, especially in previously unseen areas.

"The DEEP Climate Resilience Fund is something we launched about a year and a half ago. It's the first time the state has ever had direct funding for climate resilience planning for communities," Dykes said. "Planning ahead is critical, and I know this will not only benefit Stamford, but many other municipalities that are going to be watching what you're doing and looking to replicate and learn from the plans you're developing."

Dykes said CT-DEEP will initiate another round of funding in the climate resilience program to help provide matching funds so municipalities can actually implement some of the infrastructure projects that come out of these plans.