Volunteers Help Restore an Urban Salt Marsh in Stamford

Boccuzzi Park in downtown Stamford, CT has some of the last remaining natural spaces left in densely developed Stamford Harbor. Which is why SoundWaters, an environmental education organization, successfully pursued a $152,000 Long Island Sound Futures Fund grant in 2025 to restore 2.20 acres of salt marsh habitat at the park. When completed, the project will remove the nonnative Phragmites australis, known as common reed, considered to be an invasive species in low marsh and high marsh salt marsh habitats. SoundWaters is recruiting 760 adult community volunteers and 2,600 high school student volunteers to manually remove the Phragmites and replace it with native Spartina alterniflora, or smooth cordgrass, in the low marsh and Sporobolus pumilus, known as saltmeadow cordgrass or saltmarsh hay, in the high marsh. Sabrina Garone of WHSU radio in Fairfield, CT, recently wrote about the project on the WHSU website.