The Metropolitan Planning Organization for the

Lower Connecticut
River Valley

Reports & Studies

Newsletters

RiverCOG in Review Q4-2024

RiverCOG is the council of governments for the seventeen Lower Connecticut River Valley Region municipalities.

Connecticut River Valley Region Map

As one of nine Councils of Governments (COGs) in Connecticut, RiverCOG is an extension of the region’s city and towns, governed by the chief elected and executive officers of each member municipality, and providing shared regional services under municipal direction.

Areas of RiverCOG responsibility and focus include regional transportation, land use, and emergency preparedness planning; shared municipal services (e.g. household hazardous waste disposal); conservation of land, viewsheds, and natural environments; and support of economic development, tourism, local agriculture, and other regional initiatives.

RiverCOG is also a federally designated Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) responsible for programming transportation funds and is also a state designated Regional Planning Organization (RPO) responsible for land use regulation oversight and the regional plan of conservation and development.

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Staff Directory

Meeting Recordings and Live Streams Available on the RiverCOG Official Youtube Channel

Underwater Footage of Hydrilla in the Connecticut River – September 2023

What We Do

RiverCOG is a non-partisan forum for communication and cooperation across municipal boundaries, facilitating the identification of common issues and the pursuit of effective responses to regional challenges. RiverCOG brings together local governments, supporting shared regional services and coordinated planning.

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Photo Credit: Joe Gowac, JoeGo Photos.

Member Towns:

Chester

Clinton

Cromwell

Deep River

Durham

East Haddam

East Hampton

Essex

Haddam

Killingworth

Lyme

Middlefield

Middletown

Old Lyme

Old Saybrook

Portland

Westbrook

Regional Planning

The RiverCOG region is established around one of Connecticut’s greatest resources – the lower Connecticut River. Planning for our region with the goal of retaining its character and green spaces, while building on the environmental and economic values that our region embodies is an important part of RiverCOG’s mission. This planning will be based on the policies and recommendations of a new Regional Plan of Conservation and Development and in the review of intermunicipal referrals, which will be overseen by the Regional Planning Committee (RPC).