Field trip participants learn about planned stream restoration work on the Blind Brook in Rye, NY. Credit: NYSG/S. Powell

Contacts:

Elizabeth Hornstein, NYSG Sustainable and Resilient Communities Specialist, Suffolk County, E: eeh78@cornell.edu, Phone: (631) 824-4575

Sarah Schaefer-Brown, NYSG Sustainable and Resilient Communities Specialist, Nassau County, E: scs292@cornell.edu, Phone: (516) 832-2591

Sara Powell, NYSG Sustainable and Resilient Communities Specialist, Westchester County, E: slp285@cornell.edu, Phone: (914) 369-1591

Long Island Sound Study Sustainable and Resilient Communities Extension Professionals developed a multi-part series of virtual and in-person events to empower participants to increase the resilience of their communities to climate change and other environmental threats

Stony Brook, NY, March 25, 2024 - The Long Island Sound Study (LISS), a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-funded program created to protect and restore Long Island Sound (LIS), identifies Sustainable and Resilient Communities (SRC) as key to fulfilling the vision of the program. In 2023, NY Sea Grant SRC Extension Professionals serving Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester counties developed a resilience training series designed to empower LIS communities and decision-makers to dedicate attention and funding toward becoming more sustainable and resilient to climate change.

The three-part series consisted of 1) two virtual Steps to Resilience webinars in September that introduced 140 participants to local climate change impacts and projections, resilience planning steps and strategies, and interactive sessions with regional coordinators of NY State’s Climate Smart Communities certification program; 2) three in-person field trips in November to Sunken Meadow State Park, Manorhaven Beach Park, and multiple sites along Blind Brook in Rye, NY, that gave 100 participants an opportunity to network, ask questions, and be inspired by different types of resilience projects and plans; and 3) the 2nd Annual LIS SRC Bi-State Workshop held virtually in December. 

This multi-part resilience training series empowered more than 430 people to take steps to increase the resilience of their communities to climate change and other environmental threats. Feedback from participants noted that they valued networking and learning from each other’s on-the-ground experiences. Future training programs and workshops will continue to be developed based on feedback from Long Island Sound communities.

Project Partners:

• Long Island Sound Study 
• CT Sea Grant 
• Hudson Valley Regional Council
• Cameron Engineering/an IMEG Company 
• Sustainable CT 
• Sustainability Institute at Molloy University 
• Town of North Hempstead 
• Town of North Hempstead
• Councilmember Mariann Dalimonte 
• Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County 
• Seatuck Environmental Association 
• Coalition to Save Hempstead Harbor and Manhasset Bay Protection Committee 
• New York State Parks 
• New York State Department of Environmental Conservation 
• Audubon NY 
• Save the Sound
• Rye Nature Center 
• Rye Arts Center 
• Rye Sustainability Committee

Funding: 

• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency


More Info: New York Sea Grant

New York Sea Grant (NYSG), a cooperative program of Cornell University and the State University of New York (SUNY), is one of 34 university-based programs under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Sea Grant College Program.

Since 1971, NYSG has represented a statewide network of integrated research, education and extension services promoting coastal community economic vitality, environmental sustainability and citizen awareness and understanding about the State’s marine and Great Lakes resources.

Through NYSG’s efforts, the combined talents of university scientists and extension specialists help develop and transfer science-based information to many coastal user groups—businesses and industries, federal, state and local government decision-makers and agency managers, educators, the media and the interested public.

The program maintains Great Lakes offices at Cornell University, SUNY Buffalo, Rochester Institute of Technology, SUNY Oswego, the Wayne County Cooperative Extension office in Newark, and in Watertown. In the State's marine waters, NYSG has offices at Stony Brook University and with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Nassau County on Long Island, in Queens, at Brooklyn College, with Cornell Cooperative Extension in NYC, in Bronx, with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ulster County in Kingston, and with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Westchester County in Elmsford.

For updates on Sea Grant activities: www.nyseagrant.org has Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram, and YouTube links. NYSG offers a free e-list sign up via www.nyseagrant.org/nycoastlines for its flagship publication, NY Coastlines/Currents, which is published quarterly.