CONNECTICUT SOIL SURVEY INFORMATION ON LINE
Municipal land use commissions, contractors, town planners, engineers, farmers, and homeowners can now easily download soil information. The new US Department off Agriculture (USDA) Web Soil Survey site provides secure public access to the national soils information system. Click here to view site.

Soil surveys are needed for most land conservation activities, as well as private and commercial land development. With the new online SOIL SURVEY INFORMATION almost anyone in Connecticut can look up soils information for their specific location.

USDA designed the website with three easy-to-use features – Define, View, and Explore. When viewers access the web soil survey, they are asked to define a geographic area. Once a location is defined and projected on the screen, the viewer is offered the choice to print the map and related information, save it to their hard drive, or download the data for use in a geographic information system.

The viewer can also explore the designed location and receive information on soil suitability in relationship to usage. This provides the viewer flexibility in developing a report to address a specific need – whether it is to design a road, plant a field, or create a wetland for wildlife habitat.

Regulating Tree-Cutting
Cutting on Wetlands and Other Preserved Land Connecticut’s preserved lands are under siege, according to, Preserved But Not Protected, a recent report by Connecticut’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). The most common problem is illegal tree-cutting, but there are many other illegal actions to conservation lands owned by the state, municipalities, land trusts and other private entities. While evidence for encroachment of public and preserved land is easy to document there is a lack of legal recourse available to defend against them. Below are two articles on a recent Connecticut Supreme Court case involving the illegal cutting of 340 trees in wetlands on land owned by the East Haddam Land Trust and The Nature Conservancy. Both articles and CEQ’s Special Report are instructive for both Inland Wetlands and Conservation Commissions.

Funding "Third Party" Inland Wetlands Technical Experts
CACIWC has received numerous requests for information on the how commissions can legally contract with a “third party” technical expert to review development applications at the expense of the applicant. Below are two articles with information to assist commissions in making a decision regarding “expert witnesses”: Who Pays the Piper . . . Funding Professional Reviews in Wetlands Applications, by Mark K. Branse, Esq, and, Errors as a matter of fact: trouble with experts, in Connecticut’s Inland Wetlands and Watercourses: Permit Denials, by the Connecticut Attorney General’s Office.

Commissioner Training: Introduction to Stormwater Treatment. Municipal Inland Wetland Commissioner’s Training Program, Cheryl Chase, P. E. DEP Inland Water Resources Division. (This is a large file)