Restoring Healthy Wildlife

Our representation of municipalities, businesses and developers often involves navigating significant environmental and regulatory issues in projects that will have a lasting positive impact. For example, we currently represent the Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments in a collaborative effort to remove two aging dams from the Naugatuck River with the goal of restoring the river to its natural course and allowing migratory fish passage, while improving water quality, eliminating dam safety concerns and reducing flood risk. Our attorneys worked with federal and state regulators, including the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the CT Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services to comply with myriad regulations relating to the dams’ removal, as well as the remediation of 200 years of industrial sediments that had accumulated behind them. This remediation will allow the effective passage of fish for a 40-mile stretch of the Naugatuck River from Long Island Sound.