By Dr. Robert Thorson Riverfront Recapture? Who captured whom? For many Hartford residents, the state-funded urban development by that name is a concrete wharf, re-establishing pedestrian access to the Connecticut River. The project was a great idea. The name, however, is little more than a lovely literary alliteration, with more illusion than allusion. Whatever committee […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson Bikini atoll? Agent Orange? Cape Cod toxics? Humans have polluted the Earth in the name of national security. Why not the heavens as well? That was my first thought after reading about last month’s anti- satellite test by the Chinese. In the name of national security, they wanted to make sure […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson Architecture hasn’t changed that much. The Roman architect Vitruvius defined this most complex of disciplines as the union of “firmness, commodity and delight.” Using more familiar language, architecture strives to produce buildings and spaces that are structurally sound, useful and beautiful. This trinity of criteria also applies to the Connecticut River […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson My how things change … and how they stay the same. That’s was my first thought after reading a riveting story about academic chemical pollution published in the March 7 Seattle Post- Intelligencer. A perfectly respectable professor from the University of Washington named Daniel Storm recently pleaded guilty in federal court […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson `A River Runs Through It.” This 1976 novella by Norman Maclean describes a family bound to itself and to the land by a river. A dam runs across it. This was my first thought when I learned last week that the Connecticut River population of blueback herring migrating past the Holyoke […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson This is a happy tale of two cities. One takes place in Denver, the heart of the wide-open West. The other takes place in Hartford, the heart of the settled, Yankee East. In both versions, chemically tainted patches of land called brownfields rise from the ashes of military or industrial pollution. […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson Last Saturday night was a riot of lightning, thunder, tree-toppling gusts and drenching rainfall. By morning, Connecticut had been spared the tornadoes that ripped through much of the Eastern United States. It was not spared the heavy taint of urban pollution flushing into our watercourses and rivers from impervious surfaces. Sunday […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson The hymn “America the Beautiful” reminds us to appreciate the majesty of purple mountains and the immensity of ever-spacious skies. Southern New England has neither. Should we be disappointed? Not really. You see, there’s a downside to the immense, staggering beauty that lies west of the Mississippi River: chronic exposure to […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson `The largest poisoning of a population in history.” That’s how an epidemiologist from the University of California, Berkeley, Alan Smith, describes arsenic groundwater contamination in India. In the Indian state of West Bengal, more than 40 million people live in the poison zone. In Bangladesh, more than 82 million are threatened. […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson There’s a cover-up taking place at the University of Connecticut in Storrs. This cover-up does not involve fiscal auditing irregularities or construction mismanagement. Instead, it involves the rampant growth of shrubs over a prime specimen of Eubrontes giganteus. What on earth is that? It has three toes with curved claws. It’s […]