While monitoring programs focused on the ecological health of open waters and embayments of the Long Island Sound are well-established, a data gap exists for fecal indicator bacteria (FIB). FIB, which primarily enters waterways from sewage discharge and stormwater runoff, can cause direct and indirect harm to both people and the environment. In the Long Island Sound watershed, bacterial contamination from sewage limits safe and equitable public access, restricts shellfish harvest acreage, contributes to eutrophication, and is likely to worsen as the region experiences increased precipitation with more extreme storm events. Thus, the negative ecological and societal impacts of sewage pollution span numerous issue areas of interest to the LISS as outlined in the Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan (CCMP) 2025 update.

In 2023, through funding provided by the Long Island Sound office of the EPA, the Interstate Environmental Commission (IEC) established a pathogen monitoring network. The goal of this network is to create a coordinated, geographically strategic, scalable monitoring network for fecal indicator bacteria in the Long Island Sound watershed to inform sound-wide management and restoration actions. This project will achieve this by coordinating existing FIB monitoring programs, standardizing protocols, expanding the network to fill geographic gaps and building technical and laboratory capacity. The network was created in coordination with Harbor Watch at Earthplace, The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk, Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (CTDEEP) and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC). Prior to this program, there was no formal coordination among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) for collecting data. Without information on FIB in the Long Island Sound, the Long Island Sound Study and its regional partners are unable to quantify the location, magnitude and source of sewage pollution problems, thus hindering progress toward the objectives of the CCMP.

IEC’s monitoring network recruits watershed-based groups to collect samples for pathogens that are then analyzed by a state-certified environmental laboratory. Sampling occurs in areas with the largest data gaps, including fresh and brackish rivers and streams that serve as conduits for sewage pollution to the Sound and embayments not routinely monitored by public health initiatives. Geographic areas where elevated FIB levels are consistently detected will be targeted for increased sampling, and municipalities will be identified and engaged with to foster a collaborative approach to FIB source reduction. Monitoring expansion will be targeted and incorporate localized trackdown efforts, where warranted, to yield quantifiable reduction in FIB loads. As of 2024, ten groups participated in the monitoring network across seventeen waterbodies in both Connecticut and New York.

In the future, IEC will continue outreach to community-based potential partners in order to expand the network, primarily in priority geographic areas. In addition, IEC will build laboratory capacity by identifying a network of state-certified laboratories across the region for monitoring groups to use.

To view the 2024 monitoring groups and their respective sites, click here.