ECORI NEWS ROUNDUP

R.I. Officials Praise Revolution Wind Farm’s Progress

PROVIDENCE — Just one month after the project started putting “steel in water,” Revolution Wind announced on June 14 it completed manufacturing the advanced foundation components for use in its eponymous wind farm.

Federal and state officials descended on the project’s base in the Port of Providence, praising the progress made on Revolution Wind, and crediting the project for creating around 1,200 union jobs around the state.

“We’re investing in projects that are going to pay dividends for decades to come,” Gov. Dan McKee said at the press event. “We will continue to do the work and put people to work.”

The Revolution Wind project is slated to install offshore wind turbines at 65 positions in its lease area, located 15 nautical miles southeast of Point Judith in Narragansett. Once operational, the wind farm is expected to generate 400 megawatts of electricity for Rhode Island and Connecticut, enough to power 350,000 homes in the region.

It’s a project that’s brought princely sums into the state. The wind farm’s parent companies, utility multinationals Ørsted and Eversource, have invested more than $100 million into turning their ProvPort base into a major hub for offshore wind construction, the largest offshore wind supply chain investment in state history, according to officials.

After Pandemic Dip, State’s Carbon Emissions on the Rise Again

PROVIDENCE — Rhode Island’s total carbon emissions are on the rise. That’s according to the latest greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory from the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, whose Air Resources Office is in charge of crunching the emission numbers.

The inventory shows the state emitted a total of 9.82 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions in 2021, an 8.9% increase over the previous year, when pandemic-era closures clamped down sharply on all human activity.

The upside? Emissions are still below the first goal of the Act on Climate law, which mandates the state reduce its emissions by 10% below 1990 baseline levels by 2020. The downside? The state’s emissions have decreased by 14.4% since 1990, according to DEM’s report, but are still some 35% above the next climate goal, a 45% reduction in 1990 baseline emissions by 2030.

State officials said a rebound in emissions was expected both nationally and locally because pandemic-era closures and travel restrictions put a serious curb on what residents emitted.

RIDEM Won’t Approve Plan to Convert Pawtucket’s Morley Field

PAWTUCKET — The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management will not recommend approval of a plan to convert part of Morley Field into non-recreational use, the agency announced.

The city submitted a Land and Water Conservation Fund application in February to convert a portion of Morley Field into a non-recreational use as part of a plan to redevelop the remaining land. The conversion would include a portion of the Hank Soar Complex at Dunnell Park and the McCoy Stadium Annex complex, which would require removing current recreation restrictions.

“DEM is not recommending approval of the proposed partial conversion of the South Woodlawn/ Morley Field site at this time, because of the many environmental justice concerns expressed during the public comment period,” according to a June 6 DEM press release.

The field, at 94 Moshassuck St, is a public recreation facility created in the 1970s that consists of two parcels acquired through a National Park Service grant and as a gift from the late William H. Morley. The 5.3 acre site is restricted to recreational use only. City officials want to sell Morley Field to JK Equities LLC for a reported $500,000. The company has asked that the zoning be changed from public open to industrial. Once capped and paved over, Morley Field would be used for parking and as a staging area, according to JK Equities.

House Approves Slimmed-Down PFAS Ban

PROVIDENCE — What do nonstick cookware, artificial turf, couch upholstery, burger wrappers, and ski wax all have in common?

They are all products sold in Rhode Island that are known to contain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a growing category of toxic chemicals added to household goods to endow them with water, stain, or grease-resistant properties. They’re also referred to as “forever chemicals,” referencing their ability to resist breaking down in the environment.

It’s this property that makes them dangerous; in recent years, PFAS have been detected in human blood and a growing number of drinking water sources, including in Rhode Island. PFAS have been linked to several cancers, fertility issues, and developmental delays in children.

Lawmakers are taking another swing at regulating the chemicals this year. On May 5, the House Environment and Natural Resources Committee voted to move a new PFAS ban onto the House floor. The ban, sponsored by Rep. Terri Cortvriend (D-Portsmouth) is a tad slimmer than the bill origi[1]nally introduced earlier in the session.

It’s now called the Consumer PFAS Ban Act of 2024 (H7356A), and the regulation would only apply to products specifically listed in the act. Not includ[1]ed in the approved legislation is a suite of products, including film and digital camera equipment and children’s electronics, that may include integrated circuits or semiconductor chips. The final version also eliminated a disclosure requirement on the part of manufacturers that would have required them to label products that intentionally had PFAS introduced into them.

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