• The commission is established under the Connecticut River Valley Flood Control Compact formed by Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont.

• Each state appoints three members.

• It is intended to promote interstate comity, assure adequate storage capacity for impounding river waters to protect against flooding, and to be an interstate agency to cooperatively control flooding.

1. One of the Connecticut River Valley Flood Control Commission's purposes is to work with other Connecticut River states to ensure adequate flood-water storage capacity for the river and its tributaries. With the heavy rains in the Northeast and the massive hurricanes that ravaged the Gulf Coast and Florida in 2005 still fresh in people's minds, what more do you think the commission can do to prevent and control flooding?

2. Federal scrutiny of levees around the country increased after Hurricane Katrina. The Army Corps of Engineers told state and local officials last year that four of the state's 11 federally-built level systems – Hartford, East Hartford, Torrington, and

Waterbury – risked being decertified if deficiencies were not fixed. The Department of Environmental Protection now says the Corps will offer a plan that does not include decertification. Has Connecticut done enough to ensure the safety of its levees?

3. To the best of your knowledge what is the general state of repair of Connecticut dams?

4. What effect, if any, do large residential docks have on rivers?

5. Is the level of communication and cooperation among the Connecticut River states effective, or is there room for improvement?

6. PA 04-144 established policies for reducing flooding and other potential natural hazards. It required the state to address these goals when its revises its five-year conservation and development plan after March 1, 2006. It also requires towns to adopt regulatory standards for managing floodplains and the DEP to develop and distribute guidelines, which must include a model ordinance towns can use when revising their land use regulations and ordinances. Do you know if DEP has developed the guidelines? Do you know how many towns have adopted these standards, and what effect they have had?

7. The act also requires the DEP commissioner to provide grants for local and regional projects and plans to minimize flooding, funded by an increase in the state fee on local land use applications. Do you know how much money has been collected so far, and which projects, if any, have been funded?