By Ken Valent

WESTPORT–The 2026 Long Island Sound Report Card issued recently by Save the Sound, which showed continued improvement in the waterbody’s health, included a new addition – two Westport monitoring sites, both on the Saugatuck River.

The inner river received a B grade while the outer river, surrounded by less dense development, received an A-. 

“We were looking forward to seeing good numbers in Saugatuck Harbor with this program and we were happy with the grades we got,” said Mary Donato, research and education coordinator with Harbor Watch, a division of Earthplace in Westport, which conducted the testing beginning in 2024.

Among several categories, the lowest marks for both Westport sections came in water clarity, with the inner river receiving a D and the outer an A- (In clearer water, plants thrive and fish find prey more easily).  In three categories – oxygen saturation, dissolved oxygen and the presence of seaweeds – both sections scored A+. In the fifth measure, the amount of phytoplankton in the water, the inner river scored a C while the outer rated A+, the survey found. 

Scientists from Harbor Watch have participated in the report card since Save the Sound began including bays and harbors 10 years ago. But until 2024, they’d been testing waters mainly in Norwalk, Donato said.

Expanding into Westport’s waters was a natural extension, she said.

“We were already doing the program,” she said. “We had all the equipment and we were already trained.”

At Harbor Watch, teams venture out to do the testing every two weeks from May through October. They lower a probe into the water–a YSI EXO1–that measures a host of characteristics, including the water’s depth, temperature, salinity, turbidity, dissolved oxygen and so on. Scientists also take water samples by hand to reinforce the accuracy of the measure of chlorophyl, which indicates the abundance of phytoplankton in the water, Donato said.

David Abreu, Clean Water Advocacy Specialist with Save the Sound, agreed that the Saugatuck River performed well.

“A B isn’t a bad grade at all, especially as we move into those inner sections,” he said.

Overall, the 2026 report card, based on data from 2025, showed three of the four main regions of the Sound improving. The Western Basin, which includes the waters off Westport, received a grade of 94% grade, which is an A and higher than the 90% it scored two years earlier.

“This area is less developed than the Narrows but is still densely populated,” the report card says. “Continued water protection and restoration efforts will be part of bringing this segment to an improving trend in future years.”

The most troubled region, the West Narrows off the Bronx, rated a D, but that was a step up from the F grades it had received consistently since testing for the report cards began, the report says.

The Eastern Narrows, off western Connecticut and Westchester County in New York, received the same score as last time, 84%, or a B.

The two regions farther east – the Central and Eastern basins – both scored  A+, with the Eastern Basin scoring 99%.

Save the Sound has tested the water to produce the Report Card for 18 years. The body of water has shown substantial improvement from environmentally aware programs, including sustained investment in better sewage treatment, as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reported in 2021.

Abreu said the addition of the Westport locations makes the report more thoruough.

“We’re always adding stations,” he said. “Now the Saugatuck River can really complete that picture around Westport and around that Western Basin.”

Ken Valenti

A career journalist and lifelong resident of the New York City region, Ken Valenti has enjoyed decades of reporting local, regional and national news in New York and Connecticut. Topics of special interest are development, the environment, Long Island Sound and transportation. When not reporting, he’s always on the lookout for the perfect coffee shop or used book sale.