Farmingville, NY - Supervisor Ed Romaine announced today that the Town of Brookhaven has been awarded a 2020 Long Island Sound Futures Fund (www.longislandsoundstudy.net) matching grant to fund the Town’s Coastal Environment and Community Resilience Education Program. The Town will match the $8,799 grant with $4,450, making the total conservation impact $13,249. The grant combines funds from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.
Supervisor Romaine said, “The Long Island Sound is vital to the ecology and economy of Brookhaven Town and it is our goal to preserve it for future generations. Thanks to the Long Island Sound Futures Fund grant, we will continue to increase public awareness and encourage participation in our environmental protection efforts in the Town.”
The Town of Brookhaven’s year-long Coastal Environment and Community Resilience Education Program will run from January 1, 2021 through December 31, 2021. The goal is to foster conservation by bringing people to the Long Island Sound or by bringing the Long Island Sound to the people. The Town’s Environmental Educator will conduct presentations paired with hands-on activities tailored for each audience at public libraries throughout the Town of Brookhaven. Presentations and tours will include detailed descriptions of the intricate balance of the coastal ecosystems, the wonderful flora and fauna on the shore, dunes and salt marsh, and the positive and negative impacts of human activity in these places.
The program will also include informative, guided tours of Cedar Beach in Mt. Sinai, including the Town’s Marine Environmental Stewardship Center and shellfish and eel grass restoration projects. There will also be nature tours for people of all ages and hands-on conservation programs with the Junior Environmental Stewards at Mt. Sinai Harbor and West Meadow Beach in Stony Brook. The series will create more sustainable and resilient communities by increasing knowledge and engagement of the public in the protection and restoration of the coastal environments of Long Island Sound.
For more information about the Town of Brookhaven Coastal Environmental Education Program and Marine Environmental Stewardship Center, visit www.BrookhavenNY.gov.