Good morning, everyone. Thanks for attending.

Good morning everyone, Brian Thompson, Director, Land and Water Resources Division at DEEP

Robert LaFrance, National Audubon Society (CT)

Good morning! Emily Slotnick, Climate Resilience Manager/Director of Env. Permitting at BETA Group

Good morning everyone. Marina Astitha, Civil and Environmental Engineering, UConn.

Mary Pelletier, Park Watershed

Nicole Govert, Sustainable CT. Good Morning!

Hello! Michelle Andrzejewski, City of Norwalk - Planning and Zoning

Todd Berman - Avangrid

Hi all, Amber Garrard, Yale Office of Sustainability

Hi. Jim O'Donnell, CIRCA & UCONN

Good morning everyone. Jonathan Kinney - State Historic Preservation Officer for Connecticut.

Amy Blaymore Paterson, Executive Director, CT Land Conservation Council

Eleanor Shoreman-Ouimet, Dept of Anthropology, UCONN

Hi, I am Megan Raymond, Principal Scientist, Wetlands and Waterways Lead at SLR Consulting.

Hello all! Alicea Charamut, Rivers Alliance of Connecticut

Dave Dickson, UConn CLEAR & Extension

Good morning all. Bryan Garcia - Connecticut Green Bank

Bill Lucey - Long Island Soundkeeper - Save the Sound

Chadwick Schroeder, City of Bridgeport, Sustainability Manager

Thomas Baptist, Town of East Hartford CT, Project Manager -Chief Sustainability Officer

Mark Urban, Center of Biological Risk and UConn Dept. of Ecology and Evolution

Hi everyone, Yaprak Onat - UConn CIRCA

Hello, Dean Audet from Fuss & O'Neill

Sam Alexander, SCCOG

Rebecca French, Director Office of Climate Planning, CT Dept. of Energy and Environmental Protection

Jack Matthias, Audubon CT

Russell Clark, Urban Forester, PlanIT Geo

Good morning! Joanna Wozniak-Brown, Climate Policy Development Coordinator for Office of Policy & Management

I am Lisa Shanahan. I am a Common Council member for the City of Norwalk, Chair of the Ordinance Committee as well as chair of our Ad Hoc Resiliency Committee. I also sit on the board of the Norwalk Land Trust and the steering committee of Hudson to the Housatonic Regional Conservation Partnership

Good morning! Megan Granato here - I am the Sustainability and Resilience Manager for the Town of Groton. Listening in as an interested member of the public.

Good morning! Louanne Cooley UConn CIRCA, CT Siting Council, Town of Mansfield PZC

Good Morning Everyone. Laura Magaraci, Zoning & IWEO Town of North Haven.

Joe Marrone, Area Leader - Urban and Coastal Resilience with Arcadis

Chris Kelly - Save the Sound

Hello all. Tyler Archer, environmental and land use attorney at Shipman & Goodwin

Michael Hogan, CTDOT Transportation Principal Engineer, Hydraulics & Drainage and Soils & Foundations Units

Alysse Lembo-Buzzelli, Associate Director of Financing Programs, CT Green Bank ///// Board of Directors, CT Green Building Council

For an overview of the Governor's Council on Climate Change process please see these slides: https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/DEEP/climatechange/GC3/GC3-2022-agendas-and-minutes/Opportunities-for-GC3-in-2022-060822.pdf

Hello, Sara Morrison, Fuss & O'NeillBusiness Line Manager - Climate Adaptation

Hi Wayne Cobleigh, GZA and CTGBC, note your climate resilient nature based solution sites and buildings can now apply for 2022 CT Green Building Awards applications due Sept 30 info at www.ctgbc.org

Dominic Antonio - CTDOT, Transportation Supervising Engineer, Hydraulics & Drainage

Stephanie Bahramian, Environmental Planner with Town of Bloomfield

A reminder to Working Group members, please introduce yourself in the chat.

Sorry, how much money will be available to CT through PROTECT again please?

David Murphy, CIRCA Director of Resilience Engineering; and Principal at Resilient Land And Water, LLC

or better fish passage

Becky Bunnell Fairfield Flood and Erosion control board listening in

Working group members - If you have questions for presenters, please put them in the chat.

Did they dictate what standards would apply to increasing the project to a resilient-size capacity?

For an overview of the Governor's Council on Climate Change process please see these slides: https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/DEEP/climatechange/GC3/GC3-2022-agendas-and-minutes/Opportunities-for-GC3-in-2022-060822.pdf

Rick Bennett, US Fish and Wildlife Service

John Truscinski, Director of Resilience Planning, CIRCA

Malaquias Peña, Civil and Environmental Engineering affiliated to the Eversource Energy Center, UConn

Paul Hearn, Baralmar Advisors LLC, Stamford, CT

Link to the DEEP Climate Resilience Fund: https://portal.ct.gov/connecticutclimateaction/executive-order/deep-climate-resilience-fund

To clarify, the local match funding is a requirement for federal funding? The state is not requiring a match?

@Tyler, correct. No match required for applications to the state fund, but grantees as part of their deliverables for the state fund need to conduct an assessment to identify how they will pay for the match required for federal applications.

The PROTECT Program (FHWA) will provide around $90M to CT in formula funding, and make annually available $200M in competitive grant funding. There has not been a specific design standard communicated for the program, however, there is expected to be additional guidance issued when the competitive grants are announced.

Why is the CEEP Climate Resilience fund only funding planning and project development. Why not implementation? A lot of communities are struggling to find funding for that.

DEEP not CEEP

Is the idea to set communities up to apply for the federal funding programs?

@david yes, we are focused on getting our communities ready for federal funding opportunities for implementation, i.e. construction

ok. Thanks.

Thank you!

Question when would these DEEP grant applications be due for first round?

Thanks, Emily!

@Wayne - Track 1 planning, final applications due November 10. Track 2 project development, applications accepted on a rolling deadline, with application review beginning Oct 21 and a final deadline is Dec 2. All details are listed in the program description here: https://portal.ct.gov/connecticutclimateaction/executive-order/deep-climate-resilience-fund

thinking about getting projects shovel ready and funded, how much cepa/nepa involvement do you anticipate with ilja funded projects

Thank you!

Agree with Robert - especially if we are trying to get communities ready for federal funding opportunities for implementation.

As part of the DEEP Climate Resilience Fund we will try to help with that to some extent

Great suggestion, Robert.

referring to Robert's comment

Thanks all

If you are not a working group member and would like to speak during the public comment portion at the end of this meeting, please send me a direct message and I will add you to the list.

@joanna - neutral from DEEP GC3 admin perspective on formation of a policy subgroup...at the discretion of the co-chairs

thanks, emily - need to streamline some of these systems for sure

Survey Results:

Thanks, Rebecca. Good to know!

I think this WG could have helpful contributions to the format and process for the feeding and tracking of the resilience project pipeline, given the efforts happening across the state.

I think the interaction of flood risk reduction and environmental regulations would be worth talking about

Survey Results: 1. Stormwater Management including green infrastructure & drainage improvements, 2. Inland/ riverine flood risk management, 3.Resilient nature-based shoreline, including living shorelines, 4. Coastal/ tidal flood risk management

I have to sign off as I teach in 10min. I am very glad to be part of the group.

Thanks for attending.

What types of permitting and regulatory issues

thanks!

Thanks all. Would appreciate some clarity from the co-chairs on their vision for the final work product we are anticipated to develop, what it should include, and how the cross-cutting themes will be incorporated?

FYI, you can rename yourself in Zoom and add your affiliation. Hover over your name in the "Participants" list and go to "More" and then "Rename". adding affiliations here can help you get to know each other in such a large group.

What about scale, perhaps we ought to look at holistic ecological planning at large scales. Benefits of multiple small scale green infrastructure features can be easily erased by approval of a parking lot/big box store, or synthetic turf field.

Thanks

Interesting

Lets get a list of obstacles...

Yea I’ve heard about that with respect to nature based solutions of solar panel siting to prevent watershed leaching // tracking erosion etc

Perhaps collaborating with colleges

Like UConn extension

Yea great information, thanks!

Thanks for these examples! Are there any official processes for collecting and documenting these kinds of challenges?

++

Thank you, Alicea! Well said.

To Alicea's point, I encourage folks to look at the subgroup reports from the GC3 Working and Natural Lands WG esp Forests, Wetlands and Rivers. Link to all reports: https://portal.ct.gov/DEEP/Climate-Change/GC3/GC3-Working-group-reports

Would be helpful if regional authoriteis like COG's could serve as stormwater authorities.

Absolutely agree with Alicea Charamut, the benefits of protecting and revitalization of riparian buffers ought to be recognized as an affordable nature-based solution.

Only New London

To Alicea's point preserving open space, protecting riparian buffers, removing dams, not building in floodplains have low O&M costs.

https://www.northeastoceancouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Regulatory-Challenges-and-Opportunities-for-Living-Shorelines-in-New-England_2022.03.04-1.pdf

Rebecca - can DEEP Climate Resilience planning or Proj Devleopment funds be used for exploring/setting up utilities?

Thankyou @Eleanor for bringing in an equity lens issue to this discussion

https://resilientconnecticut.uconn.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2761/2022/08/Flood-Climate-Resilience-and-Erosion-Board_fact-sheet-8.24.22.pdf

this is in addition to stormwater utility authorization

Elle I’d love to see your research//preliminary findings!

Thank you! looking forward to working with the group.

Goodluck on the grant!

Thank you to the co-chairs!!!

FYI, the first webinar for the DEEP Climate Resilience Fund will be Friday, Sept 22 from 12-1pm. See the website for all information: https://portal.ct.gov/connecticutclimateaction/executive-order/deep-climate-resilience-fund

General guidance is there NO written report requirement. An oral presentation to the GC3 is the deliverable.

Thank you for this opportunity. Looking forward to rolling up sleeves and coming up with strong recommendations.