In this context, Wu et al. (2001) found no larval mortality but demonstrated delayed worker development when brood was reared in highly contaminated (including low residue concentrations of several neonicotinoids) brood combs.
Neonicotinoids can lead to delayed worker development.
Neonicotinoid insecticides act as neurotoxic agents and affect the mobility of bees by inducing symptoms such as knockdown, trembling, uncoordinated movements, hyperactivity and tremors (Lambin et al. 2001; Nauen et al. 2001; Suchail et al. 2001; Medrzycki et al. 2003; Colin et al. 2004).
This has some good resources to look into further for observed changes in behaviors.
Changed behaviors include: knockdown, trembling, uncoordinated movements, hyperactivity (I've seen this one mentioned a lot in other papers) and tremors.
imidacloprid
From this study it appears that imidacloprid is lethal to bees, and other neonicotinoids such as acetamiprid are less toxic, but still pose sub-lethal affects to bees.
imidacloprid,
imidacloprid appears to be much more toxic through the oral route compared to other neonicotinoids.
age of the bee
Age, Species, and Size of the bees had an impact on the toxicity of certain neonicotinoids.
Toxicity is dependent on the route of exposure with contact being less toxic than oral.
Route of exposure is important to the level of toxicity the bee will experience!!!!
INCLUDE THIS IF RESEARCH INCLUDES ROUTES OF EXPOSURE
It should be noted that dosages applied in these metabolism studies are much higher than the levels found in the field and might even be in the toxic range. The relevance of these data for the metabolism at field-realistic concentrations therefore remains uncertain.
Research what the toxic range is for neonicotinoids.
Neonicotinoid residues in plants and plant parts only become of importance for bees once they are exposed
Neonicotinoid residue in plant species only becomes of importance once bees are exposed.
imidacloprid
type of neonicotinoid
Within the different insecticide classes, the neonicotinoid insecticides, which include imidacloprid, acetamiprid, clothianidin, thiamethoxam, thiacloprid, dinotefuran and nitenpyram, are an important group of neurotoxins specifically acting as antagonists of the insect nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChR) (Matsuda et al. 2001; Elbert et al. 2008).
This will be important to mention for the research paper... Cover that neonicotinoids are a class of pesticides, and then specify which neonicotinoid was used in the research.
The decline of pollinating species, which has grown over the last decades, may lead to a parallel decrease of plant species, or vice versa (Biesmeijer et al. 2006; National Research Council of the National Academies 2007; Goulson et al. 2008). More specifically, there is a great concern about the decline of the honey bee (Apis mellifera) in several parts of the world (Oldroyd 2007; Stokstad 2007; VanEngelsdorp and Meixner 2010). It is now accepted that the abundance of pollinators in the environment is influenced by multiple factors, including biotic ones like pathogens, parasites, availability of resources due to habitat fragmentation and loss; and abiotic ones like climate change and pollutants
There has been a decline in pollinator populations overtime and this has been attributed to a variety of factors including abiotic and biotic factors. One of these factors is the use of pesticides such as neonicotinoids which is a known neurotoxin to bees.
The focus of the paper is on three different key aspects determining the risks of neonicotinoid field concentrations for bee populations: (1) the environmental neonicotinoid residue levels in plants, bees and bee products in relation to pesticide application, (2) the reported side-effects with special attention for sublethal effects, and (3) the usefulness for the evaluation of neonicotinoids of an already existing risk assessment scheme for systemic compounds.
Targets of the paper here ->
Neonicotinoid insecticides are successfully applied to control pests in a variety of agricultural crops; however, they may not only affect pest insects but also non-target organisms such as pollinators.
Neonicotinoids not only get rid of the target insects, but they also harm the nontarget insects such as bees and other vital pollinators.
highly toxic to bees in very small quantities
Neonicotinoids have been found to be toxic to bees in small quanitites.
Both poor nutrition and pesticide exposure can have negative impacts on bees, which may be exacerbated by these factors occurring together.
Poor nutrition could have an impact on the severity of results when the bees are exposed to pesticides. For the study it will be important to make sure bees all receive the same amount of nutrition.
Currently, bees are simultaneously dealing with multiple, potentially interacting, environmental stressors. Pesticide exposure combined with other stressors, e.g., parasites, nutritional stress, and climate change, can affect bee mortality, reproduction, behavior, and immune response antagonistically, additively, or synergistically. While most research to date has focused on honey bees, increasing evidence is emerging from non-Apis bee studies.
It would be important to mention how the combination of stressors can have an impact of the results of the study, and how it can put bees at an increased risk.
However, while reductions in pesticide exposure associated with organic practices can have beneficial impacts for non-Apis bees (e.g., 81, 144) and the pollination services that they provide (e.g., 4), these effects are not ubiquitous
effects aren't seen everywhere?
Despite the importance of recovery processes in maintaining long-term population persistence, there have been limited research efforts in this direction for non-Apis bees, likely due to the logistical and resource limitations of landscape-level field studies.
Area of study is limited for non-social bees.
Sociality might be a trait that influences demographic recovery,
So what would happen with solitary bees?
Once af
There could be differing results in the lab vs. in the field. Since there are a variety of confounding variables that have an influence on the field populations.
These examples serve to illustrate that, even if pesticides can have population-relevant impacts on bees, outcomes are likely to vary with application method and timing in relation to crop bloom, as well as exposure pathways including different exposure routes (soil during nesting or pollen and nectar during foraging) and environmental fates (degradation) of the pesticide products.
Could investigate if different exposure pathways have different resulting on the severity of the impact.
For solitary bees, there is a lack of data on pesticide effects for even the most basic aspects of reproduction, such as offspring production, offspring development from egg to adult, and overwintering success (104).
For solitary bees there is a lack of understanding for how pesticides impact reporoduction rates.
Bee species differ in their intrinsic sensitivity to pesticides (9, 72, 74, 76) and therefore their ability to resist or recover after exposure, which, at a population level, often depends on their life-history traits
Certain bee species are more sensitive to pesticides than others.
affected
Many of the findings listed above only pertain to honey bees and bumble bees...
Bumble bee flight (89, 90) and foraging performance (7, 55, 64, 65, 163, 166) can be impaired by neonicotinoid consumption.
Could observe the effects in solitary native bees
Consumption of pesticide-contaminated nectar by bumble bees can lead to reductions in the amount and rate of feeding (antifeedant effects)
Pesticides can have antifeedant effects
exposed to combinations of multiple pesticides,
Two factor experiment with exposure to a couple different pesticides?
Body size can be an important factor influencing both intra- and interspecific sensitivity of bees to pesticides
The size of the bees body can play a role in it's sensitivity to pesticides. Could be an interesting point of study to compare larger and smaller bees. Also younger bees tend to be smaller so they could be more are risk to pesticides. There is less body mass to spread the pesticide.
Mortality and lifespan effects of acute and chronic exposure during different life stages, including those found by dose-response studies, can vary substantially among both bee taxa and pesticides.
Mortality effects can vary on bee species and the amount of exposure, as well as the type of pesticide.
However, the underlying drivers of exposure in different bee species and contexts is not well understood, even though this understanding is essential for both predicting pesticide effects and developing strategies for risk mitigation
It is not well understood what the underlying drivers are for exposure in different bee species. So exposure can vary from species to species though there are some common methods of exposure that are present in many species.
uch mixture exposure can come from intentional tank mixtures of pesticides but most often can be attributed to the differential habitats and materials used by bees, resulting from their nesting and foraging habits
Bees can be exposed to a mixture of pesticides, some farms or other areas may use a mix of different pesticides.
species that forage over larger areas are more extensively exposed to pesticides compared to species with more limited foraging ranges because the former exploit large but widely scattered resource patches (96), which in agricultural landscapes are often made up of pesticide-treated flowering crops.
Species that forage over a larger area are exposed more often to pesticides than those who stay in a limited area.
when pesticides drift and leach into the surroundings
pesticide exposure could happen through drift, the pesticides can drift from the desired crops and area through a variety of ways and then contaminated it's surroundings providing even more opportunities for bees to be exposed to pesticides.
Bees’ foraging ranges are thus an integral part of their ecology (88), and the spatial arrangement among nests and flowers determines how bees are distributed across the landscape and therefore their pesticide exposure.
The bees foraging pattern can have an impact on their level of exposure. Certain plants and crops may be exposed to pesticides more than others. Bees are attracted to certain crops and may stay in close proximity to them, and thus may be exposed more often to the pesticides.
combined for ground-nesting solitary bees to estimate pesticide risk
Could look into combined risk, and the various routes of exposure that should be considered and studied.
The extent to which pesticides in soil can penetrate the larval or adult cuticle is currently unknown.
Something to study? Pesticides reside in soil and it is unknown how that affects solitary bees species.
Both solitary and stingless bees use a diversity of nesting places and materials, which, in addition to soil and mud, make resins, petals, leaves, stems, and wood potentially relevant for their exposure pathways (39, 153).
There are various ways that solitary bees can come into contact with pesticides.
Solitary ground-nesting species account for approximately 75% of the estimated 20,000 bee species worldwide
Solitary bees make up such a large portion of bee species, and yet they are very understudied. Most studies focus on social bees.
Contact with pesticide residues via resin is likely a more important route of exposure for stingless bees, which use these plant exudates extensively, followed by honey bees (which turn resins into propolis) and bumble bees and some solitary bees (30). Honey, bumble, and stingless bees secrete and manipulate wax for nest construction, with adults and larvae coming into contact with these structures for weeks, months, or years.
The pesticides may be incorporated into building materials for nest construction.
Similar to air, contact exposure to pesticide residues on plants is likely to be a consistent route of exposure across bee taxa, particularly for bees foraging on treated crops in agricultural landscapes and for male solitary or bumble bees, which rest among plants instead of returning to a nest overnight.
For bees that are common in agricultural settings a common route of exposure it through pesticide residue on plants.
Contact exposure to pesticide residues in the air likely represents a common route of exposure for all adult bees
Pesticide exposure through air pollution, since adult bees fly through the air and can be introduced then.
Collection of sugary exudates from homopteran (honeydew) or plant (guttation fluid) sources represents a potential exposure route for honey, bumble, and stingless bee workers, with honeydew representing the more important exposure pathway for Apis and stingless bees, for whom guttation fluid is less important
Collecting sugary exudates from plants (sugary liquid that leaks from plants) could be another potential way that bees can be exposed to pesticides.
Pesticide residues in water represent a possible route of exposure for adult bees from most taxa, although the likelihood of exposure is much greater for honey or stingless bee workers that regularly collect water for nest thermoregulation
Pesticide water pollution poses a potential way for exposure for certain bee taxa
depends on whether females provide mass provisions (solitary and stingless bees) or sequentially feed their brood (honey and bumble bees)
Larval exposure depends on the species of Bee, so this can be a difference between social and non social bees.
Oral exposure to pesticide residues via the consumption and transportation of nectar and pollen, by adults foraging either for their own needs or to provision their offspring, is common to all bee taxa
Common to all bee taxa (exposure due to consumption and transportation of nectar and pollen)
during foraging, nest construction, brood care, and hibernation and through either oral (nectar, pollen, water, or honeydew) or contact (air, plants, propolis or resin, wax, or soil) exposure—with exposure being species and life stage dependent
Bees can be exposed to pesticides in a variety of different manners and in different parts of their life cycle.
Is there a different impact depending on the age of the bee? What other factors have an impact on bee behavior when in combination with pesticides?
Such spatial co-occurrence could indicate the potential for substantial pesticide exposure for a significant part of these bee communities
A variety of different bee communities are exposed to pesticides in many different regions. Pesticide usage is global and poses many risks to the bees that are exposed.
Pesticide exposure pathways emerge from the spatiotemporal intersection between bee activity patterns and pesticide contamination of the landscape—the latter resulting from pesticide use and fate
Bees are typically exposed to pesticides due to contamination of landscape. When they interact with contaminated plants it can alter their behavior.
(32, 87, 153, 180, 188, 202).
Focuses on a variety of different impacts pesticides may have on bee behaviors.
However, honey bee ecology and life history are atypical for bees.
Bee ecology of honey bees is different from native bees. And it can only be imagined how different the social bees are from non-social bees.
much of our understanding of the routes and impacts of pesticide exposure has come from honey bees
Most of the research regarding pesticides has had to do with honey bees. Which aren't even native to the US. There is not much research on native bees.
future research to expand our knowledge would also be beneficial for ERAs and wider policy decisions concerning pollinator conservation and pesticide regulation.
Further research is needed in order to determine the dangers posed by certain insecticides and pesticides on a social and non-social bees species.
including spatial and temporal activity patterns, foraging and nesting requirements, and degree of sociality.
Bee species vary drastically from one another in their habits and their ecological traits.
pesticide exposure is one of the key environmental stressors affecting their health in anthropogenically modified landscapes.
Pesticides has an impact on the overall health of bees regardless if they are social or non-social. However, the extent of this impact is unknown in many solitary bee species.
Non-Apis Bees
20,000 species of bees fall under this category. Both social and nonsocial bees are technically falling under this category.
We know very little about how exposure to pesticides may affect solitary bees, and there's an urgent need to fill in this knowledge gap so that improvements to regulatory testing, alongside pollinator management and conservation, can be made to ensure sustained delivery of pollination services.
gap of knowledge that needs to be filled
This again suggests the need to include solitary bees in pesticide risk assessment, but also that the frequency of exposures should also be considered.
Often times solitary bees are left out of assessments, most of the time the focus is placed on social bees such as honey bees and bumblebees.
guidelines for chronic risk assessment testing don't currently capture this type of repeated exposure and sublethal effects.
Current guidelines do not consider the dangers of repeated exposure to this pesticide
Our findings suggest that the number of exposures is important; for example, effects on behaviour were dependent on the number of exposures, while multiple exposures to either insecticide can have negative impacts on the pollination services that they provide.
The amount of times a bee was exposed to the insecticides was important to the influence it had on it's behavior.
As exposure to insecticide had varied effects on both solitary bee foraging and delivery of pollination services, it may be expected that there could be knock-on impacts on bee longevity, reproduction and ultimately population persistence. We did not measure reproduction as our caged setup would not have provided sufficient resources for bees throughout their whole lifecycle.
Could possibly look further into reproduction and how that is effected by the insecticide.
How long are the reproduction cycles for bees?
However, the varying results in pollen deposition and apple production between exposure rounds could also suggest combined effects of pesticide treatment and other environmental factors such as apple tree resource availability or weather etc.
Confounding variables that may have had an impact on the findings? It is difficult to control factors such as weather.
Our results show that insecticide exposure altered the foraging behaviour of solitary bees, although this varied according to exposure round.
The level of insecticide exposure influenced the severity of the impact on bee foraging and pollination behavior.
we know very little about how insecticide exposure may affect solitary bees or the important pollination services that they provide
Gap of knowledge for further investigation.
Here we show that exposure to two widely used insecticide compounds with different modes of action can alter solitary bee behaviour and delivery of pollination services to an economically important crop.
This was the main point of the study. The usage of neonicotinoids has an impact on the behavior of solitary bees, and most importantly it has an impact on their pollination services for crops such as apple trees.
The number of pollen grains deposited on stigmas collected after single visit pollination was related to the interaction between treatment and exposure round
Exposure had an impact on pollination services?
In general, patterns indicate that bees exposed to both insecticide treatments performed some behaviours at a higher rate and for shorter durations than control bees, depending on the number of treatment exposures.
The insecticides had an impact on the foraging behavior of the bees. It was also shown that the rate of pollination declined (pollination services declined possibly). The actual severity of the impact was dependent on the duration and frequency of exposure to the pesticides.
foraging behaviours (e.g. forage for nectar, then pollen and then nectar again),
Research typical foraging techniques for bees.
Each cage was given three freshly sprayed trees (the remaining three sprayed trees were returned to the plant holding cage until they were used for pollination service delivery measurements), and all other plants were removed from the cages. Bees were allowed to forage on these trees for 4–5 days before being swapped for three new freshly sprayed trees (following the same protocol as above) until they received a total of three rounds of exposure.
Research how often the pesticides are sprayed on farms etc. To see how this study compares in level of exposure.
Solitary bees may be particularly important pollinators of this crop, as they can be found in high abundance and carry lots of crop pollen
Solitary bees are important for the pollination of crops like apple trees.
Thus, it's likely that in a field scenario, bees may be exposed to either chemical on multiple different occasions while foraging on the crop in flower, although the exact timing and frequency of this exposure may vary depending on the sprayer/farmer and various external variables
There is variance in exposure and it is hard to determine what would actually happen in the field since the usage of the insecticide can very heavily depending on the user.
Although several neonicotinoids are banned for outdoor use in Europe (e.g. EC, 2018a), acetamiprid was not included in the ban as it's deemed to be less toxic than other compounds in this insecticide class
Search up was is currently allowed for usage in CT, and what is going through the movements of being banned.
A neonicotinoid (acetamiprid) and a pyrethroid (lambda-cyhalothrin) were chosen as two currently widely used and registered insecticide compounds, but of differing chemical classes.
Neonicotinoids are a widely used insecticide. Currently in CT there is a movement to get it banned due to how dangerous it is.
At this point, males were removed from the cages to limit any disruptions to behaviour observations (i.e. mating attempts while a female was foraging).
If we are able to separate the male and female bees this may be a good idea in order to remove any disruptions to the foraging behavior of the bees.
40 % sucrose in the bug dorms.
In this study they tried to keep a similar age range for this study (may not be possible with our study) Fed with 40% sucrose in their bug dorms
This experimental design allowed us to assess pesticide effects on the foraging behaviour and pollination service delivery of bees after cumulative/repeated exposure.
Could possibly use a similar method to study the impact of the neonicotinoids on native bee populations of choice.
Give a comparison between repeated exposure vs. single exposure. Identify what is most likely to happen in nature.
we also included multiple rounds of exposure to evaluate the effects of repeated exposure on foraging and ultimately on apple production and seed set.
Repeated exposure could have a significantly different impact than single time exposure of neonicotinoids on bee populations
ban of three neonicotinoids (imidacloprid, thiamethoxam and clothianidin)
Historically neonicotinoids have been found to pose a risk to bee populations, and this in the EU it has been banned. What actions has the US put against neonicotinoids?
until recently, the impacts of pesticides on bees focussed on effects on mortality, there is increasing recognition in the research and risk assessment communities that sub-lethal effects are also important to consider as they have direct implications for bee population stability
Until recently there has been a focus on only the mortality rate when it comes to pesticide exposure in bee populations. Future focus should be on the mortality as well as sub-lethal effects such as a change in pollination, overall behavioral changes, health complications etc. Behaviors such as forging is very important specifically for solitary bees.
species
Hypothesizes that the impact that insecticides have on solitary bees will be different than the impact on social bees such as honey bees and bumblebees
However, use of pesticides can have consequences for non-target organisms such as bees that may be active in areas they are used, including when foraging on wild plants and crops where they deliver pollination services.
The usage of insecticides such as neonicotinoids can have an impact on bee behavior and pollination rates. This can have an impact on a lot of a wild plants and non-wild plants if bees are unable to pollinate correctly due to pesticide exposure.
This suggests that both neonicotinoid and non‑neonicotinoid insecticides can potentially affect behaviour and pollination services of solitary bees depending on how often they are exposed
Exposure rate has an influence on the impact the insecticide has on bee behavior
The ability to forage is critical for solitary bee reproduction, also in how they deliver pollination services, and we know little about how insecticides can impact these behaviours.
Possible area of study: how do insecticides such as neonicotinoids impact the behaviors of solitary native bee populations
Solitary bees are important pollinators of crops and wild plants, and their decline poses a risk to the sustained provision of the services they provide.
Many of CT's native bee populations are solitary bees. Most studies with Neonicotinoids focus on the impact on non-solitary bee populations such as honey bees and bumble bees.
PFAS
Air and water pollutant
PFAS chemicals, often referred to as “forever chemicals” because they are so hard to break down, have been linked to cancer risk, reproductive complications and other health issues.
I'm curious what sort of health issues have the PFAS been linked to? It lists a couple but I was wondering if you looked into that further. Do you know any other forever chemicals? I've never heard of that term before this article.
Saint-Gobain did not admit to wrong-doing but in 2022, the company agreed in court as part of a consent decree to provide clean drinking water to approximately 1,000 homes whose water was contaminated.
This is them trying to take responsibility, however this is not helping the source of the problem. They have not halted the production of their PFAS, and thus they are still producing more pollution.
blamed for contaminating southern New Hampshire’s air and water with dangerous levels of PFAS chemicals, has finished demolishing the Merrimack manufacturing facility at the center of the controversy, the company announced Thursday.
What are PFAS chemicals? Why are they so dangerous what do they do to the human body or to animals? It states that it is also an air pollutant so how would that work?
But Deanna D’Amore, the health department director for the city, said she so far has not seen much public complaints about the air quality.
Since the air pollution from the wildfires was so prevalent back when it occurred, why do you think people weren't complaining? Do you think it is because they believed there is nothing to be done since the problem came from so far away in another country? Or because it did not really disturb their day to day life? Since often times in the summer months we are inside most of the time anyway due to how hot it can get.
Stratford’s ozone received an F rating by the American Lung Association. But the town’s air wasn’t too bad by the time the smoke started to make its way into the state.
Why does Stratford have such a poor ozone rating? Why is there such bad air pollution there? I personally don't remember being over there so I was wondering, maybe there are a lot of factories etc?
We also sent out a Spanish version since Norwalk has a lot of Spanish speaking community members to share a message about how they could protect themselves,” Matthews said.
I think this is great that they are being inclusive and keeping in mind that not everyone that lives here in the US speaks and understands English fluently. Its important that these alerts are in multiple languages so many individuals can understand them and stay safe in the face of air pollution.
Air quality alerts remain in effect across Connecticut due to air pollution from Canadian wildfire smoke
I was wondering if you know who pushed out those air quality alerts back when this occurred? I know it was specifically on the weather app. Also, can you speak on the importance on understanding how air pollution in one region can impact other regions nearby? Since air pollution can travel and impact other states etc.
Repurposing of the building was essentially impossible. Demolition of the Draper factory took over a year, beginning during the pandemic, the clean-up is still going on today.
Why was repurposing the building impossible? Is it due to the heavy amounts of asbestos present along with the rotting roof? What also made it impossible to repurpose?
What clean up and demolition efforts are still happening nowadays?
became known as the most polluted river in the U.S.
It appears that the cotton making plant required labor from slaves when it was functioning. Perhaps it could have shut down when Slaves were freed, and perhaps there were less people to tend to the cotton. It is also interesting to learn that Blackstone River is one of the most polluted rivers in the US.
the largest manufacturer of powered cotton looms in the world. The machines built here played an integral role in the industrial revolution, a revolution which began in the Blackstone Valley of Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
It appears that this cotton factory played a major role in the industrial revolution and continued to function well into the mid 20th cen., I wonder why exactly they went completely out of practice and no longer produced any cotton there.
The Draper Factory, located in Hopedale, Massachusetts was once the largest manufacturer of powered cotton looms in the world.
During what time period did this farm run? If it was one of the largest cotton plants it must have been a large operation. Why did the plant shut down?
Some of the larger animals, perhaps the giraffe or rhinoceros, they don't have as much space, but we're giving them access to wherever they want to be,"
What can they do for larger animals that have to stay out in the open and are in greater danger of air pollution exposure?
Wildlife rehabilitators have noticed a behavioral change in some animals recently because of the poor air quality.
What sort of behavioral changes are being seen in animals, and what kinds of animals were being impacted? This statement was sort of generalized.
The smoke is also a threat to many animals. Some in the wild are confused, fearing that their habitat is in danger, causing them to end up in unexpected places or even injured.
I'm curious how air pollution influences animal behavior. What impact do pollutants have on animal well being? It is implied in this sentence that they are displaced and can be put into dangerous situations due to said displacement. Did you look into the other impacts air pollution has on wildlife?
Connecticut continues to assess the damage and calculate whether the cost thresholds have been met that would enable the state to receive a major disaster declaration from the federal government, which could result in the release of federal funding to support the rebuilding and repairing of damage to eligible public and uninsured private property.
How is CT measuring the damage and determining how much money individuals who were affected get, I am also curious about how much money was going toward repairs.
On August 19, 2024, at 12:45PM, Governor Ned Lamont, signed a State of Civil Preparedness Emergency regarding the extensive and severe flooding.
I am curious what measures Connecticut has put in place in terms of protection against flooding, what did this "State of Civil Preparedness" actually do for the people in CT?
The Major Disaster Declaration makes funding available to residents and businesses affected by the flooding in the specified counties.
How much money was included in these grants? And how were they supposed to be used? Was it mainly just restoration money to build back what the floods had knocked down?
The state Urban Search and Rescue Swiftwater Team was activated and assisted in over 100 evacuations on August 18th during the day and throughout the night.
Where did the evacuations occur in CT? Did they occur in areas near large bodies of water?
Connecticut also experienced major river flooding to include the Housatonic, Little River, and Naugatuck rivers.
How did this flooding impact those who live near these rivers? Did people need to move out of the area or were they okay to stay? When was the last time we've had a flood this bad? Have the floods been getting worse as climate change has progressed?