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Westerly Sun: “The heavily redacted documents make it impossible to identify where the water will be withdrawn from the Narragansett parcels and what routes will be affected by tanker truck traffic, Platner said in her testimony.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.
Westerly Sun: “We haven’t been notified, we’ve had no calls from the state agencies, and no calls from the tribe,” council President Virginia Lee said Friday. “We have no information so we’re going to discuss with our lawyers how to go about getting the documents we haven’t been provided and how to get the data.”
ecoRI News: “John Brown, Narragansett Indian Tribe medicine man, gave ecoRI News a list of reasons for agreeing to work with what could be one of the biggest polluters in the state.”
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Invenergy has reached agreements with the Narragansett Indian Tribe and Benn Water & Heavy Transport to serve as backup water suppliers to the fossil fuel-burning power plant […]
Communities across southeastern Connecticut and southern Rhode Island breathed a sigh of relief last month when the Federal Railroad Administration withdrew plans to build the controversial Old Saybrook to Kenyon Bypass, but a new study for alternatives is underway that could allow the bypass to return.
ecoRI News – Rhode Island just doesn’t get it, even when it tries to be 21st century. Cutting down 30,000 trees to make room for a solar farm is only slightly less 1980’s than destroying 200 acres of forest to build a fossil-fuel power plant.
The smallest state has plenty of wasted space, in the form of brownfields, old landfills, rooftops, parking lots and empty big-box retailers, but the Ocean State seems driven to Paul Bunyan its way to the future.
The cast of thousands who successfully convinced the Federal Railroad Administration there must be better ways to fix the Northeast Corridor than running track through some of this region’s most historic and beautiful areas should give themselves a round of applause. Then it is time to get right back to work and Act II. This is just intermission.
“I don’t think it’s over by any means because the Record of Decision sets a benchmark that requires a transit time between New York City and Boston of 2 hours and 45 minutes, roughly an hour quicker than what it is right now,” he said. “The plan no longer proposes any solutions, instead it sets up the New Haven to Providence Capacity Planning Study, which requires the state-level departments of transportation in Connecticut and Rhode Island to take on a larger role, and to find a way to meet this mandated time savings.
“Just in Charlestown, we had 19 pieces of open space that would have been affected, and we counted upwards of almost 100 pieces of private property,” said Filippi. “The rerouting in northern Charlestown was going to save about one minute of time and cost over a billion dollars to do. And it just didn’t make sense.” Video included
“We now place our faith in RIDOT and CTDOT to work with the FRA on a good-faith process to evaluate the New Haven to Providence corridor and impacts of the various route alternatives.”
Now, the new plan is calling for a studies in both Connecticut and Rhode Island to examine ways to improve service on this stretch. The FRA said those studies will be conducted by the states in conjunction with the FRA and other “stakeholders,” but the agency did not offer specifics on funding, costs or a timeframe.
Bowing to local pressure, the Federal Railroad Administration has dropped plans for a controversial new rail line from Old Saybrook CT to Richmond RI from its ambitious project to overhaul the railroad system in the Northeast corridor.
Scott Millar of Grow Smart Rhode Island, “Grow Smart certainly doesn’t support, taking agricultural land that can yield good, fresh food for Rhode Islanders out of production to generate power, and we certainly don’t support the clearing and further fragmentation of forest land that can negatively impact resources such as our drinking water, habitat, to supply power. I think Rhode Island needs power, and the increase in renewable energy is an important objective, but we believe there are many existing sites in Rhode Island that have already been developed or that are zoned for industrial or commercial use that can be used to support renewable energy.”
Scott Millar, manager of community technical assistance for Grow Smart Rhode Island, said solar panels on rooftops, industrial land, landfills and brownfields would minimize environmental damage. He noted that crash-strapped municipalities would be eager to rent vacant and underused development space to renewable-energy developers.
“We need to take a hard look at what we’re proposing,” the former Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management staffer said. “We shouldn’t be sacrificing farms and forests.”
Greg Stroud is a quiet, thoughtful academic with limited experience in civic engagement, but he transformed into a relentless community organizer and grass-roots lobbyist after learning of a proposal from […]
A rebellion that began in Old Lyme and has spread along coastal Connecticut is pressing the federal government to make big changes in an ambitious plan to bring high-speed rail to the Northeast, and to turn the proposal into merely “aspirational” recommendations.
The properties, which have all been acquired by the state, are the Salt Pond Archaeological Preserve in Narragansett, the former Providence Boys Club Camp Davis in Charlestown, and the Chief Sachem Nighthawk property on South County Trail in Charlestown. The DOT demanded that the tribe waive its sovereign immunity on the parcels and agree to make them subject to civil and criminal state laws.
March 10, 2017 08:21AM By Catherine Hewitt Sun staff writer CHARLESTOWN — Members of local municipal staffs, conservation and governmental groups, and the Narragansett Indian Tribe met with Federal Railroad […]
March 7, 2017 07:54AM By Catherine Hewitt Sun staff writer As legislators and residents of Rhode Island and Connecticut await the Record of Decision on the Northeast Corridor high-speed rail […]
March 6, 2017 07:52AM By Cynthia Drummond Sun staff writer PROVIDENCE — A group of rural towns is asking the state to modify certain provisions of the Low and Moderate […]
February 25, 2017 02:30AM By Catherine Hewitt Sun staff writer In a meeting with representatives of Charlestown, Westerly, and the Narragansett Indian Tribe, Sen. Jack Reed recommended a two-step process […]
CT Mirror – By: Ana Radelat | February 13, 2017 Washington – In the staredown between the Federal Railroad Administration and opponents of part of its plan in Connecticut to […]
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., emceed the event. “It’s not about partisan politics, it’s about doing smart and wise planning,” he said. “This rerouting bypass is half-baked, harebrained and it will never happen because the costs are so astronomical — in fact, there’s no reliable estimate.”
He said the design took no account of environmental damage, historic preservation, and local economic impact.
“This is a fun fantasy for the Washington, D.C., bureaucrat planners but it’s a nightmare for all of us who have to live with this proposal,” Blumenthal said. “You need to be heard and we’re going to make that you are heard and that Tier I is history.”
Testimony submitted to the Transportation Committee of the Connecticut General Assembly by Stonington First Selectman Rob Simmons.
We are adamantly opposed to the southeastern bypass and will fight it every way we can. The future of our historic towns cannot be negotiated away for a few minutes of convenience for the Boston to New York traveler who will not even get off for a visit.
About 200 Charlestown, Westerly and Narraganset Tribal residents traveled to the State House Wednesday afternoon to participate in a rally opposing the plan for the bypass.
But before the rally started, a private meeting with Raimondo gave Westerly and Charlestown town council members and the region’s state legislators to hear concerns about the project.
“She heard us and she had done her homework and knew the issues,” said Charlestown Town Council President Virginia Lee after the meeting. “She took a very firm stand.”
Raimondo did not attend the rally, but she released a statement indicating that while she was in favor of the inclusion of Providence as a major hub on the Northeast Corridor, she would not support the bypass.
