L.I. SOUND

Democrats in the House seek assurances that they can pass a second, larger spending bill on a likely party-line vote.

There is little pressure to rush the legislation to a vote despite its promise of funds for the Sound, environmentalists and supporters of the original Senate bill said this week. Some welcomed the debate that has surrounded the House’s broader funding package, which includes trillions of dollars to enact Democratic priorities from combating climate change to establishing universal pre-K.

“Anyone who cares about infrastructure and the environment and our families are hoping for a quick resolution and for passage of both bills,” Save the Sound President Curt Johnson said. “It’s way above my pay grade to tell Congress which bill they should pass first.”

In addition to billions of dollars to repair the nation’s aging roads and bridges, improve airports, expand high-speed internet access and build new railways, the Senate’s bipartisan infrastructure bill would significantly boost the Environmental Protection Agency programs in the Sound, Chesapeake Bay, Great Lakes and other bodies of water.

Those programs include monitoring of water quality, improving wastewater treatment and reducing nitrogen pollution as well as restoring vital habitats such as eel grass beds and oyster reefs, according to the EPA and lawmakers.

In a report to Congress last year, the agency said it has restored 350 acres of habitat along the coast of the Sound, with hundreds more set for restoration by 2035.

Congress has been able to “supersize” the EPA’s budget for Long Island Sound in the previous five years, said U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn. — though he added that the next phase of projects will involve costlier upgrades to infrastructure such as stormwater management systems.

“Long Island Sound is a driver for the state, so many of our jobs from aquaculture to tourism are driven by access to the Sound.” Murphy said. “So cleaning up the water, and preserving habitats, it’s not only the right thing to do for the environment, it’s the right thing to do for the economy.”

During an event in August promoting the legislation’s funding for the Sound, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., predicted a “bumpy road ahead” for the Senate infrastructure bill. Asked whether that assessment remained true this week, Blumenthal said the infrastructure bill and its investment in the Sound remained relatively noncontroversial — and that the looming question was how that spending would be linked to the House’s broader spending package.

“Frankly, failure is not an option,” Blumenthal said. “We absolutely have to do it, we’re behind where we should be in our investment as a nation in those physical and human assets, and we should do both.”

Beyond the money specifically earmarked for Long Island Sound, the infrastructure bill also includes $15 billion that would be used to replace lead pipes and $10 billion to mitigate pollution caused by PFAS chemicals, along with other water infrastructure projects that advocates said would also benefit the Sound.

“Polluted stormwater runoff is one of the major impediments to Long Island Sound’s water quality,” Louis Rosado Burch, a program director for the Citizens Campaign for the Environment, told reporters in August.

“This funding will help Connecticut further reduce nitrogen pollution that contributes to the hypoxia that impacts our biodiversity,” said Rosado Burch. Hypoxia, or low dissolved oxygen concentrations, damages the ecology of the bottom water habitats of the Sound, harming fish, lobster and other species.

Much of the money in the infrastructure bill, including the $106 million for the Sound, is spread over a five-year period. According to the EPA, its total Long Island Sound budget for the most recent fiscal year was $20.6 million — though that amount could double by 2022 regardless of Congressional action on the infrastructure bill.

“That would be a very significant boost to ecological restoration and community resilience projects and clean water projects all around Long Island Sound,” Johnson said. “They range from capturing stormwater in New Haven and Bridgeport … to projects to open up rivers and restore marshes, to projects to help with the kind of sewage upgrades that are needed.”

As negotiations continue over the size of the second, broadly focused House spending plan continued, Congressional leaders said this week that they hope to pass both measures by Oct. 31, the Associated Press reported.

While the $106 million appears secure within the infrastructure bill, at stake in the negotiations around the House bill are billions of dollars for clean energy initiatives and climatefocused spending.

“It’s a transformative moment,” Johnson said. “We’re all waiting with bated breath.”