Articles by Tom Andersen

Gets national reforms on the basis of local violations

Can somebody with more knowledge and experience tell me if something extraordinary is going on in the office of Kevin J. O'Connor, the U.S. Attorney for the Connecticut district? It certainly seems extraordinary to me -- and deserving of wider notice and praise.

Famed naturalist and herpetologist dies

Great wildlife biologists are foremost great animal enthusiasts, people who get off on encountering cranes or mountain lions or, in John Behler's case, snakes and frogs and turtles. The few I've known have held on to a capacity to be delighted by nature, not just the exotic but also the ordinary beauties and surprises that come close to home. John Behler -- the curator of herpetology for the Wildlife Conservation Society, who died last week at age 62 -- was responsible for great conservation victories in Madagascar and Southeast Asia, and he co-wrote The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Reptiles & Amphibians. But he studied spotted turtles for years in a county park a short drive from his home, and he could be as enthusiastic as a kid -- albeit a well-educated kid -- when he made a discovery in his neighborhood.

For five years a ferry was dumping sewage directly into Long Island Sound, and no one noticed?

It's not every day that someone in America goes to jail for an environmental crime. But yesterday, Mark Easter, the operations manager of the Fishers Island (N.Y.) Ferry District got hit with 30 days, for dumping raw sewage into Long Island Sound and the Thames River, in New London, Connecticut. And the federal magistrate in Hartford who is overseeing the case hit him with a $10,000 fine for good measure.

It's hard for me to say whether the punishment fits the crime here. But I have a feeling that someone is being let off the hook, politically if not legally -- and I'm not saying it's Mark Easter.

Hunting deer amidst strip malls

To the usual problems of suburban sprawl and strip development -- the traffic, mind-numbing visual blight, and acres of pavement -- add another: It's not easy enough to hunt deer.

That's the situation in Milford, Connecticut, where the owner of the local Honda dealership has asked the town for permission to put in a gravel road so he can hunt, with bow and arrow -- not on a remote tract deep in the woods but on a 100-by-100 plot behind his showroom.