About Us

QWRA Today

Over our 29 year history, QRWA has successfully educated and worked with thousands of residents and businesses throughout the Quinnipiac River Basin. QRWA utilizes a broad array of strategies to fulfill our mission to conserve the Quinnipiac and its watershed. We run programs, events and actions in education & outreach, advocacy,  science & monitoring, conservation & restoration, and recreation & public access. From our inception, QRWA has successfully combined citizen-based teamwork, public education, and professional advocacy for strong legal and regulatory natural resource protection.

QRWA's volunteer corps is our muscle. We connect scientists with lay-people, coordinating the training of volunteers to collect scientific data on water quality, conduct population surveys and monitor the physical characteristics of rivers. We have created and published water trail guides and informational pamphlets, and use educational appearances at schools, celebrations and festivals to create a bond between area residents and their river. We enhance the public's river experience by further developing water and riverside trails and creating more and better places to access the river and view its wildlife. We have established annual get-on-the-river events: the Quinnipiac Downriver Classic canoe and kayak race; the Source-to-Sound Cleanup; the opening day Fishing Derby; and regular guided hikes and canoe trips. Staff members are certified to offer basic canoe instruction and recruit and train students to become river interns. 

QRWA has formed many effective public and private partnerships. Reflecting the trans-boundary nature of a watershed, QRWA works with its allies at the municipal, regional, state and federal level, as well as with universities and colleges, foundations, local schools, neighborhood groups, other environmental organizations, and the business community to champion resource protection as a public benefit. We consistently work with CT DEP's Bureau of Water Management, Office of Long Island Sound Programs, and the CT DEP Parks & Forests Division, as well as with the USDA's Natural Resource Conservation Service. The QRWA is an organizational member of Rivers Alliance of Connecticut, a state-wide rivers advocacy group, and the New Haven Environmental Coalition.

QRWA works with our partners to identify habitats and native plant and animal populations in need of restoration or resource protection, and then to develop and implement such projects. Working with students and Natural Resource Conservation Service ecologists, we have conducted native plant wetland and streamside buffer plantings. We have coordinated dozens of volunteers to erect osprey nesting platforms in the Q marsh, and constructed a public bird viewing blind within view of one of the platforms. In 2004, we coordinated 200 beetle farmers to biologically control purple loosestrife ( Lythrum salicaria ) as part of a statewide effort run by University of Connecticut. In the coming spring, working with CT DEP Inland Fisheries Division, the Town of Wallingford and Save the Sound, we will construct a fishway on Wallingford's Wallace Dam to permit native shad and alewife to reach their historic breeding grounds in the upper Q.

QRWA has an aggressive advocacy program, arguing for limiting water diversions on an already stressed river and for increasing vegetative buffers, preserving habitat and mitigating runoff pollution whenever development threatens the river or its wildlife. QRWA advocates at the municipal level, providing testimony at Inland Wetlands and Watercourses, Conservation, and Planning & Zoning Commission hearings and at the state level joins with other river groups in support of stream flow and buffer legislation.

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