The 1376th Meeting of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences was held at the New Haven Lawn Club on Wednesday, March 21, 2007. Some 60 members and their guests enjoyed cocktails at 5p.m. and the evening program began at 5:30 p.m. CAAS President Ernest Kohorn welcomed the audience. He wished the members to know that members of Council continue to talk with members of the Connecticut legislature in order to obtain supportive funds for the Academy.

Dr. Kohorn announced five new members:
Gaffney Fescoe, President, Halifax Associates Management Consultants,
Wilton, Alan Friedlander, Professor of History, Southern Connecticut State University,
Armen Marsoobian, Department of Philosophy, Southern Connecticut State University, Guiseppina Palma, Associate Professor of Italian, Southern Connecticut State University,
Dorothy Vasquez-Levy, Associate Professor of Education Leadership and Policy Studies, Southern Connecticut State University. Dr. Kohorn recognized the presence of three newly elected members and welcomed them.

Dr. Kohorn introduced the speaker for the evening, Gaddis Smith, the Larned Professor of History Emeritus, whose talk was entitled "The Past and Future of Long Island Sound."

Professor Smith said that when he built his 16-foot sailboat in 1952 there were many fish in New Haven harbor- tons of flounder and even some porpoises. This is not so today. He then described the economic and climate changes that have taken place on the Sound since the 16th century. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the Sound was often frozen in winter. The last freeze to date was in 1978 and that was unusual. In the 16th century the Indians lived here and then the Dutch and the British took over. The sea was once the economic mainstay of Connecticut and a dominant part of its culture. From Patagonia came fur from seals, which were traded with China for tea, chinaware, silk and spices. Although this lasted but 10 years it established vast fortunes. With the rise of New York as the great transatlantic shipping port, trade began to decline and whaling took over. The slave trade, from Barbados and not from Africa, flourished and in fact New Haven had the largest number of slaves in New England. Shipbuilders, mariners and sea captains lived on shore. One such person, a ferryman by the name of George Padree, taught math and manners in his spare time. The peak of the sea traffic came in the 19th century when there might be 200 schooners waiting for the tide to turn. The breakwaters made New Haven a safe haven for schooners. Today there is no shipping in the Sound other than tankers bringing either oil or gas. New Haven has become the place to move energy as it transitions from agriculture to industry. The only living resources remaining today are oysters and lobsters but they are not as plentiful as they were in the 1970's.There is much research on how we can alter all the human action that is affecting this resource adversely. The outlook for the Sound is both good and bad. There are laws preserving and protecting the land to make sure that an I95 will not again be built on filled in tidal water. The Sound has become a dumping ground for human and industrial waste. The Clean Water act attempts to control this.
Turning to the burning question of the Broadwater project Professor Smith said that since World War II it has been increasingly more important to transmit natural gas by pipeline. The project, to be housed in a container three football fields in length, on the New York side of Long Island Sound, stores the gas that is liquefied at low temperatures until it is reheated and evaporates into its natural form. Two tankers will transport the natural gas to Long Island. It is hazardous because the heat poses a great danger of fire although there have been no accidents yet in any other such projects. It also turns a fine piece of water into an industrial park. The energy shortage has produced great pressure to go ahead with this project and the federal government has taken control away from the states. It is not feasible to put it on land because of the fire hazard. Given the choice between nuclear power and liquid natural gas, Professor Smith would opt for the latter because it avoids problem of nuclear waste. Given his wish for the future he would opt for no Broadwater project in the Sound.