Just three days after the Connecticut Council on Environmental Quality released its latest assessment of the condition of the state's environment, more than two dozen environmental groups rallied to protect the small state agency from the budget chopping block. Calling it a "distressing situation for Connecticut's environment," Eric Hammerling, executive director of the Connecticut Forest & Park Association, on Friday released a copy of letter signed by 33 groups urging that the council remain an independent agency and that its $183,000 annual budget not be eliminated.