Environmental Outreach: Partnerships for the Environment

Partnership Spotlights

• The Nature Conservancy
• The Corporate Wetlands Restoration Partnership
• The American Chestnut Foundation
  

The Nature Conservancy

With funding from the Northeast Utilities Foundation, in 2004 The Nature Conservancy embarked on a historic, five-year effort to coordinate conservation efforts along the length of 410-mile Connecticut River — from the Canadian headwaters to Long Island Sound - towards the goal of preserving the long-term health and viability of New England's most important waterway and its key tributaries.

For the first time in its 50-year history, The Nature Conservancy's four state chapters in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont combined their resources to work with a New England-wide alliance of stakeholders.  

The five-year project will seek to:

• protect lands that encourage the filtration of toxins from the watershed;
• work with state agencies to identify and control invasive plant species;
• educate municipal officials in the river's watershed about ecologically-minded development and other practices; and
• work with government agencies to collect more data on the river system, to enforce existing regulations and to work to reduce threats.

The program will have a special focus on five key areas of the river:

• in Connecticut, the lower Connecticut River including the Eightmile and Salmon Rivers;
• in western Massachusetts, the Westfield River;
• in New Hampshire, the Ashuelot River;
• in Vermont, the West River in Vermont; and
• the Nulhegan Basin on the border of Vermont and Canada.

Corporate Wetlands Restoration Partnership

The Corporate Wetlands Restoration Partnership (CWRP) facilitates important wetland restoration projects through public-private partnerships. CWRP was established to restore, preserve, enhance and protect aquatic habitats throughout the United States. Since 1999, CWRP has funded more than 1,000 projects restoring more than 20,000 acres and 3,000 stream miles.

Northeast Utilities has helped fund and oversee eight wetland restoration projects in Connecticut, including installation of four fish ladders, a dam removal, a wetlands vegetation restoration project and two education projects. NU also participates in the New Hampshire and Massachusetts chapters of the CWRP. The company has dedicated $120,000 over the last six years to the CWRP chapters for wetland restoration projects in the three states.

The American Chestnut Foundation

The American chestnut was among the most common and versatile trees in the eastern United States, producing straight, pest-resistant wood valued by craftsmen and often used for utility poles until it was decimated by blight 50 years ago. Science is now trying to help the tree stage a comeback.

To support that effort, Northeast Utilities has asked its registered shareholders to elect to receive the company's annual report and proxy materials in electronic form to reduce NU's use of paper. For each shareholder who elects to do so, NU will make a $5 donation — approximate per-shareholder savings in annual printing and mailing costs — to The American Chestnut Foundation to plant an American chestnut tree in Connecticut, where 40 percent of NU's shareholders reside. The offer is open to shareholders whose shares are registered through the company and not in brokerage accounts.

More information about the American chestnut and foundation is available at the TACF website, www.acf.org.  NU shareholders can sign up for electronic delivery of annual report materials and www.proxyconsent.com/nu.