Providence Journal: From a dark corner of Charlestown, not far from the ocean, the view reaches millions of light years into space. The Frosty Drew Observatory & Sky Theatre’s new PlaneWave CDK600 telescope has already provided images of galaxies more than 55 million and 80 million light years away from Earth. “It’s the best telescope in Rhode Island that’s accessible to the public,” said Scott MacNeill, observatory director.
Council members passed two resolutions this week calling on action from the state as Charlestown joins a growing list of communities that are seeking to resurrect legislation first presented in 2016 that would let towns better regulate and monitor quarry activity. The resolutions, which were presented by councilor Bonnie Van Slyke and passed unanimously, take aim at addressing combinations of noise pollution, air pollution and nuisance abatement.
Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont discussed accelerating investment in high-speed rail by leveraging the new federal funds provided by the Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act at a meeting with Amtrak officials. A spokesperson for CT DOT said the meeting did not include a status update on the Old Saybrook to Kenyon bypass.
A U.S. Department of Transportation “Providence to New Haven Capacity Planning Study” has some local officials wondering whether the original plan to run train tracks through sections of their town, and other Rhode Island and Connecticut towns, might not be dead after all.
RI DEM owns and manages a public boat launch and about 40 acres of property in Charlestown to the west of the breachway that connects Quonochontaug Pond to Block Island Sound. An informational meeting, hosted by DEM, presented a recent assessment of the breachway and the access road/parking lot and focused on ways to improve the pond and breachway’s resiliency in the face of rising sea levels and other climate-crisis impacts.
“The problem is, according to Haberek, Kenyon Industries is not currently capable of meeting the new, stricter standards. He said DEM and the company would therefore need to negotiate a consent agreement that would set a timetable for Kenyon to comply with the state’s new effluent limits.”
During its September 7 special meeting, the Zoning Board of Review took public comment that included testimony about the Route 91 operation and included numerous complaints. The board voted unanimously, 5-0, to reject the appeal and found Charlestown Farms provided insufficient evidence for the applicant’s appeal and affirmed the decision of the town’s building and zoning official, Joseph Warner.
Charlestown’s Zoning Official has determined that the nonconforming legal use does not apply to lots 3 and 4-1 because the company has not done enough to prove the burden of a nonconforming legal use. Next meeting regarding the appeal of the ruling of the Zoning Official before the Zoning Board will be held on September 7 at 7 p.m. at the Charlestown Town Hall.
Cynthia Drummond reports on the pace of growth in Charlestown and the impacts on everything from the Zoning Department, to the Planning Commission, to our Coastal Ponds and even drinking water.
A team of University of Rhode Island researchers is conducting a series of geophysical tests to determine the extent drinking water wells are being contaminated by an intrusion of salt water. They are focusing their efforts along the edge of the salt ponds in Charlestown and South Kingstown, where the problem appears to be the most severe.
Lisa Tewksbury, Charlestown resident and director of the URI Biocontrol Laboratory, has launched a targeted biocontrol effort to fight the emerald ash borer. First found in RI in 2018, emerald ash borers are threatening to destroy the entire population of ash trees in Rhode Island. Do you have an ash tree in your yard or on your street? If so, watch out for this invasive beetle. Lisa and her students are deploying three species of parasitic wasp from Asia that lay their eggs in the beetle’s eggs or larvae to try to control the ash borer.
A study of the impact of utility scale solar power installations on nearby housing prices by University of Rhode Island economists found that house prices within a mile of a Rhode Island or Massachusetts solar array declined by an average of 1.7%. Homes within a tenth of a mile of the installations declined by 7%.
As neighboring towns continue to approve the clearing of forest for utility scale solar, a new report shows RI has room to generate lots of solar energy without sacrificing the state’s dwindling green spaces.
Rhode Island’s 386,373 acres of forest protect drinking water, filter air, mitigate climate change, provide opportunities for outdoor recreation, promote health, harbor wildlife, and create economic value, according to the state’s Department of Environment (DEM). The Ocean State’s forests also improve air quality, sequester carbon, help manage stormwater runoff, and provide a “sense of place” for rural communities.
CT Examiner is the publication launched by Greg Stroud who was the founder of SECoast that helped us defeat the “Old Saybrook to Kenyon Bypass” that threatened to bisect northern Charlestown. Here he and Cate Hewitt write about Charlestown. It’s worth a read!
Virginia Lee, president of the Charlestown Town Council, has a unique understanding of the salt ponds. She appreciates their economic value to the town, and as a scientist, she has also studied salt pond ecosystems that are affected by development, climate change and other factors.
“The amount of nutrients coming in, in groundwater inputs, was always assumed to be small enough that you could ignore it, and that’s what the models did. They just basically ignored it,” he said. “To many of us, that really didn’t make a whole lot of sense, because the materials that the ponds and bay are in are surrounded by pretty porous glacial materials.”
The objective of the project was to dredge the breachway, improving the flow of water and water quality in the pond. The dredged sediment was used on-site to build up the salt marsh, which has been subsiding — effectively drowning in place.
Advanced wastewater treatment systems, also referred to as denitrification systems because they reduce nutrients such as nitrogen, are required by the state for new buildings on the coast. Despite the more stringent regulations, however, groundwater nitrate levels remain elevated in several Charlestown neighborhoods and in the three salt ponds.
This excellent Rhode Island Monthly article by Todd McLeish explains that the harbor seals are only here in the winter months when water is cold. They head north to cooler waters in the summer. Story begins with a Blue Shutters seal release.
The Charlestown Planning Commission voted Wednesday against a controversial plan that would bring a Dollar General retail store to the village district off Old Post Road.
ecoRI: The ability of our woodlands to sustain our landscape and provide all those benefits is threatened by their continued loss and by fragmentation of the canopy. The rate at which the construction of roads, subdivisions and other human development continue to break up large, contiguous blocks of forest into an increasing number of smaller pieces is alarming. Fragmentation divides up the resource, and these islands of woodland provide limited benefits.
ecoRI: As the state progresses toward its renewable-energy goals, pressures are increasing to develop land with solar or wind resources, causing concern in some communities, especially rural ones. With smart local siting policies, both of the two “green” goals of renewable energy and land conservation can be achieved. Rhode Island communities can enjoy both the benefits of renewables and be good stewards of our landscapes and habitats.
EcoRI: “The solution is to site projects in places that make sense environmentally and societally. The current policy, though, is nothing more than a collective shrug and the repeated claim that it’s cheaper to cut down trees than redevelop disturbed areas.”
The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management has awarded a $429,267 grant to clean up contaminated land around Clark’s Mill in Shannock Village. Built in 1848, the mill, on the Pawcatuck River, is currently owned by FXF Hydro, which submitted the grant application in December.
This story in the Journal Nature explains that the world is lit at night like never before, and ecologists are assessing the damage.
Locally, Charlestown is the darkest spot along the coast between New York and Boston, but we lose a little darkness every year.
In late September, the tribe contracted with Invenergy to supply water from tribal wells that are sourced from the southern portion of the Lower Wood Aquifer, located in the Wood-Pawcatuck Watershed. The watershed comprises all or parts of Charlestown, Richmond, Hopkinton,Westerly, Exeter, West Greenwich, and South Kingstown in Rhode Island, and North Stonington, Stonington, Voluntown, and Sterling in Connecticut.
Westerly Sun: “The heavily redacted documents make it impossible to identify where the water will be withdrawn from the Narragansett parcels and what routes will be affected by tanker truck traffic, Platner said in her testimony. The maximum withdrawal quantity is also missing from the documents, making it impossible to gauge the impact on the town and the aquifer, she said.”
Invenergy recently announced the tribe as the back-up water supplier to cool its proposed plant. However, tribal members claim the water deal was made illegally without a vote from the tribal body, which violates the their constitution. Darlene Monroe, tribal elder and march organizer, said the next step is to file a court order that would put a stop to the water agreement.
Westerly Sun: “You may now become an affected community under the Energy Facility Siting Board’s regulations and if that’s the case they may need to amend the proceeding that they’re in now and have a hearing in Charlestown, but only if we’re allowed to intervene,” Ruggiero said.
