Health, Safety & the Environment

Whether or not the the present influenza season becomes as severe as some medical experts are forecasting, many colleges and prep schools are adopting prudent health policies, which are worth examining and emulating.  Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford, CT, for example, has provided to parents via email its published policy for dealing with the flu. Cornell University recently emailed to students, parents, alumni, faculty and staff a statement of condolence from the University’s President concerning the tragic death of an undergraduate due to H1N1 influenza complications.  President Skorton’s letter provides a link to a bulletin from the campus health service alerting students to the risks of influenza and how to recognize the warning signs of a potentially severe illness.  President Skorton’s letter also provide a link to Cornell’s newly launched web-site, You & the Flu, which provides additional detailed information concerning the University’s response to H1N1 influenza from the standpoint of transportation, dining services, dormitory life, the Cornell work place and class attendance.  In summary, these Cornell web-based resources and associated links provide an excellent model for any educational institution in Fairfield County that has yet to devise a comprehensive policy for combating H1N1.

Not all of us are great outdoors adventurers, but all of us–particularly our children–like to walk and enjoy nature.  The Connecticut Forest & Park Association has brought to Connecticut residents an exciting new initative–WalkCT, an interactive website that launched today.  CFPA has a long and illustrious history of imaginative initiatives to connect people to the land and help conserve our resources.  This initiative is outstanding!  Among other things, you can insert a zip code into the site and you are immediately taken to prime hiking locations in that area or apprised of community events–a bird walk, a Diabetes fundraising walk or WalkCT Family Ramble.  I encourage all of my readers to explore this new site.

Connecticut’s Council on Environmental Quality (“CEQ) is a state agency that works to improve environmental enforcement in Connecticut.  Significantly, it investigates citizen complaints that some individual or a state agency may be violating environmental laws.  Martha Phillips, the co-chair of the Connecticut League of Conservation Voters, recently warned that the CEQ (and other watchdog agencies) is receiving zero funding in the Governor’s recently unveiled proposed budget and many of its functions being transferred to the very agencies that CEQ is supposed to keep tabs on!  Ms. Phillips writes in a recent CTLCV blog post : “Surely we are not expected to imagine that the Department of Environmental Protection will blow the whistle to call attention to itself when it falls down on the job or has a less than stellar performance. Worse, these watchdog agency cutbacks are occurring at a time when the news media is retrenching and there are fewer knowledgeable reporters and investigative journalists than ever. How are citizens to find out when things are amiss? CEQ will no longer be there — its responsibilities will have been subsumed (submerged?) under the agency it formerly monitored. And we won’t read about any shortcomings it in the press either-because most of the reporters who knew the beat and had contacts and news sources have been laid off.   If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Evidently we are expected to believe that if environmental programs are mismanaged or environmental laws go unenforced, it won’t matter since we will hear nothing about it.”