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Six States,
Summer 2006
New Wave
A Connecticut surfer launches a local
chapter of the Surfrider Foundation.
by
Dan Mathers
When Andrew
Krupa started to create a local Surfrider Foundation chapter in
Connecticut
—
the only New England state bordering the ocean
without a chapter
—
his work caused a few surfers to scratch
their heads.
“When people think of Connecticut,” he says, “they don’t think
of surfing.”
While the resident of Mystic, Connecticut, admits he surfs his
hybrid longboard mainly in the waters of nearby Rhode Island, he
does occasionally catch waves in his home state. And although
the Connecticut shore may not be teeming with surf shops, the
state does have a surfing community.
But Krupa says regardless of the size of the state’s surfing
scene, the Surfrider Foundation should flourish there. The
Surfrider Foundation is a national, nonprofit ocean
environmental group with 60 local chapters throughout the
country. Its name, though, often leads to a lot of
misconceptions. For instance, it is primarily an environmental
group, and anyone can join
—
even if they’ve never hung 10.
“You don’t necessarily need to be a surfer,” says Krupa.
And Krupa is banking on interest from both surfers and
nonsurfers alike as he tries to launch the group’s Connecticut
chapter. A local chapter needs at least 25 members to be
endorsed by Surfrider’s national branch. Over the past year,
Krupa has recruited 27 members, and their first meeting is
scheduled for July.
He started the chapter because he has had a lifelong passion for
environmental issues, and he is concerned about the problems
facing Long Island Sound. Surfrider, he says, offered the best
opportunity for an average person to go out and make a
difference.
To make a difference is going to take a lot of work, as the
Sound is confronted with serious issues. Among them, Broadwater
Energy has proposed building a liquefied natural gas facility in
the middle of the Sound that Krupa says would be roughly 10
stories high and 500-feet-long. Krupa says his first concern is
safety and the facility’s potential for an explosion, for leaks,
and how pollution from it could effect the local fisheries. He
is working with politicians to defeat the proposal.
The Sound also has significant runoff problems. Many of
Connecticut’s major highways run along the Sound and the
estuaries that drain into the Sound, and the pollution from
automobiles makes its way into the water. Fertilizer runoff is
also a problem as it creates algae blooms in the Sound that kill
sealife. Another concern is the dramatically declining health
and population of local shellfish. Krupa says nobody knows for
sure what is causing the problem. To preserve the Sound, Krupa
says Connecticut Surfrider members will contact legislators and
work to educate the public about environmental issues. Members
will also do legwork such as beach cleanups.
To affect change, Connecticut Surfrider will need an army of
members. Krupa says he’s hoping to recruit most of the 138
Connecticut residents who are already members of the national
Surfrider Foundation, and then reach beyond that. He hopes to
have roughly 500 members a few years from now.
To find out more about the Connecticut chapter of the
Surfrider Foundation, email Andrew Krupa at
ctsurfrider@yahoo.com.
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