Connecticut Hasn't Counted Its Own Wildlife Habitat or Open Space, CEQ Says

Connecticut's environmental watchdog panel says the state does not know how much open space or wildlife habitat it has and is relying on outdated data to make critical decisions about preservation or development.

The state Council on Environmental Quality, in a draft of its legislative proposals for next year, says the Department of Environmental Protection is off by tens of thousands of acres in estimates of open space totals and how far the state is toward its preservation goal.

The open space acreage figures are crucial to how the state distributes bonding funds to help municipalities buy land.

"The DEP's estimates of its own land are pretty accurate," said Karl Wagener, executive director of the CEQ, in an interview last week. "The DEP does have a good grip on what it owns."

But when it comes to municipal parks and preserves, non-profit-owned preserves, and land protected by land trusts and through easements, the estimates that the DEP puts out are off by tens of thousands of acres, he said.

At the hearing in Hartford on the draft proposals, several advocacy groups went on record backing the goal of creating a more complete database. "Creating a volunteer recording system for land trusts is really vital," said Sandy Breslin, director of governmental affairs for Audubon Connecticut, the state office of National Audubon.

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