A major loss for Noank, Groton and the world

A LOSS FOR NOANK, GROTON, AND THE WORLD

Noank - Edgar Zell Steever V passed away April 15, 2024, at age 82, at Yale New Haven Hospital. The cause of death was heart failure. Zell was a 50-year resident of Noank, Groton, and was involved in many aspects of the community.

He came to Noank the summer after junior year at the University of Connecticut to work in UConn fisheries research lab. He purchased a house there soon after college. He and his first wife, Karen Steever, raised their sons, John and Scott, in Noank until their early teenage years.

Zell was an ecologist/biologist by training. His Master's thesis at Connecticut College was a study of the coastal salt marsh ecosystem in Stonington. His state and federal government career focused on water resources management and wetlands protection. In the 1970s, Zell served as the director of Water Resources for the state of Connecticut, dedicating to protecting inland wetlands. He also chaired the Groton Conservation Commission. During the Nixon years, he was on the staff of the President's Council on Environmental Quality, aiding the White House in interpreting newly passed federal laws for environmental protection. During his career in the federal government, Zell worked in water resource protection and management at several agencies, including EPA, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Department of the Interior, where he was a conflict resolution specialist in the Federal Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency that deals with western water rights and management. He retired in 2004. One high point of his career was serving on the U.S. delegation to the UN Earth Summit in 1992, the first UN negotiation and agreement on sustainability. At the summit, Zell negotiated five chapters of Agenda 21 for the U.S., including freshwater and science.

In Washington, D.C., Zell remarried to Elizabeth Raisbeck, gaining two stepsons. Upon retirement, they returned to Noank, where Zell became involved in local environmental issues. He was chairman of two task forces established by the Groton Town Council, most recently the Task Force on Resilience and Sustainability, where he persuaded the town to create a full-time staff position to address the impacts of climate change at the local level. In recent years, Zell's passion for environmental issues led him to join the Connecticut Commuter Rail Council, where he advocated for expanding passenger rail service in Eastern Connecticut to reduce CO2 emissions. In Noank, Zell engaged in a number of local zoning issues, bringing his deep understanding of state property law and a calm, clear perspective to resolve conflicts, always with the community's perspective.

Zell was a man of many passions. He was a talented athlete and avid sailor, spending much of his youth on the waters of Long Island Sound and Chesapeake Bay. He crewed on large yachts racing from Newport, R.I., to Bermuda. He raced his own Marshall 18 catboat for many years off Noank shores, earning his reputation as the man to beat. Both he and his wife had deep roots in the Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence River where they spent summer vacations. Upon retirement, he designed and built a post-and-beam glass house in the forest of Grindstone Island. He joined the board of the Thousand Islands Land Trust, where he helped the board navigate several conservation initiatives and shared his expertise on ecosystem management. Over his lifetime, Zell renovated six houses, including his Noank house, and built another. For many years, he and his father attended a class at Wooden Boat School in Maine, where they built lapstrake canoes to Aleutian kayaks. Zell's carpentry skills delighted his children and grandchildren, with whom he built many projects, even a Steever-designed gingerbread fort.

He was an intellectual, a scientist, an artistic visionary, a problem solver, a hands-on woodworker, a boat builder, an engineer, an architect, a passionate environmentalist, a raconteur, a loving husband, a wonderful father, grandfather, and friend. He was dedicated to the communities he lived in and the planet we all share.

Zell is survived by his wife, Elizabeth, of 43 years, of Noank; his sons, John Barringer Steever and Scott Alden Steever; his stepsons, Jonathan and Gabriel Kaplan; six grandchildren; and his brother Sanford B. Steever.

A celebration of Zell's life will be held at 1 p.m. Thursday, May 16, at the Noank Baptist Church. Refreshments will follow at Palmer's Provisions, Noank. Gifts in his memory may be made to the Mystic Seaport Museum, Stonington, CT, or the Thousand Islands Land Trust, Clayton, NY.

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