Advocating for the Estuary

Identifying Environmental Impacts of High Speed Rail Tunnel/Bypass

Co-chairman of the RTPEC board, Claudia Weicker, speaks at Town Hall.

On December 16, 2016, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) released its Preferred Alternative for improving passenger rail travel along the Northeast Corridor. This proposal would create a new 50-mile segment bypassing coastal southeastern Connecticut via an inland route between Old Saybrook and Kenyon, Rhode Island. The FRA proposal calls for a multi-billion dollar tunnel under the environmentally sensitive Connecticut River Estuary, the Lieutenant River, and the Historic District of the Town of Old Lyme. Additionally, the new rail line would require the acquisition and/or condemnation of hundreds of acres of undeveloped land and conversion to transportation use.  Two members of the RTPEC Board worked on the Old Lyme Selectwoman’s strategy team crafting an 82-page response to the FRA in January of 2017.

Recognized as an estuary and wetlands complex of global importance under the Ramsar Convention (1993) and designated as one of the “last great places in the western hemisphere” by The Nature Conservancy (1994), the Connecticut River Estuary constitutes an environmentally sensitive ecosystem that provides breeding grounds, habitats, and support for hundreds of species, including many that are considered endangered such as the federally listed King Rail and Piping Plover and the State listed Great Egret.  The wetlands have been designated as a critical habitat for the Atlantic Sturgeon, until recently considered extinct in Connecticut River waters.

Performing important ecosystem functions such as carbon sequestration and acting a natural barrier to rising sea levels and the increasing frequency of storm surge, the estuary and its wetlands depend upon the combination of unusually strong tidal flows which deposit nutrient rich sediment throughout the wetlands and into Long Island Sound. Prior to issuing its preference for a new rail segment, the FRA failed to examine the environmental impact of the proposed tunnel on the estuary, its wetlands and habitats leading to the CAS conclusion that the tunnel/bypass should be removed as an option.