Stage Agency Gives Country Club 30 Days to Submit Restoration Plan for Illegal Seawall
PROVIDENCE — Coastal regulators have started the shot clock for the Quidnessett Country Club’s illegally constructed seawall. The Coastal Resources Management Council, by unanimous vote on June 10, rejected a petition from the club to refer the seawall case to the CRMC’s hearing officer, and in a separate motion, ordered the club to come up with an acceptable removal plan within 30 days.
It’s the first significant action by the CRMC against Quidnessett Country Club over its 550-foot-long seawall in the two years since the club built the wall on the 14th hole of its golf course on the coastline in Narragansett Bay without authorization or permits from state coastal regulators.
Once the club has submitted an acceptable restoration plan for the site, it will have another 90 days to hire a contractor and execute the plan, extending the lifespan of the seawall deep into the summer, and possibly into the winter, far longer than environmental advocates were hoping. CRMC executive council chair Raymond Coia also suggested a stay of action against the club for the 120-day period, shielding the club from further enforcement action for its duration.
“It affords them an opportunity to work with agency staff and come up with a restoration plan,” Coia said Tuesday.
RIDOT Says Contractor Will Plant Trees on Site Near Roger Williams Park
PROVIDENCE — The contractors who mistakenly took down trees near Roger Williams Park will plant new ones, according to the Rhode Island Department of Transportation.
“Some of the new landscaping will be planted in 2025, and the final landscaping will be installed upon completion of the bridge in 2027,” RIDOT spokesperson Charles St. Martin wrote.
Contractors hired by RIDOT had initially cleared the trees in an area near routes 1 and 10 while working on the Huntington Viaduct that runs over Elmwood Avenue and Interstate 95.
After several residents posted online about the clearing, concerned that so many trees had been chopped down, RIDOT said the clearing was purposeful. But a few weeks later the agency backtracked, saying the contractors had taken more trees than they had permission to cut down.
Residents who spoke to ecoRI News in March after the clearing took place said the number of trees cut down felt unnecessary, especially because the area is so close to Roger Williams Park, which is home to an abundance of wildlife.
“Overall, the project will reduce the total bridge deck area for the bridges by approximately 40 percent and eliminate large areas of impermeable surface,” St. Martin wrote, “which is good for the environment and will create more greenspace than exists now.”
The project will add pedestrian paths and bikeways and remove some of the existing pavement on Route 10, he added.
Bills Banning Firefighting Gear, Biosolids Containing PFAS Set to Pass
PROVIDENCE — RI lawmakers are on the cusp of passing new restrictions on two very different kinds of products that may contain hazardous per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).
This year is looking to be the year lawmakers ban the distribution and sale of turnout gear — the protective clothing worn by firefighters — that has PFAS intentionally added during manufacturing. If passed into law, the ban would go into effect Jan. 1, 2027.
It’s not the first year a ban on PFAS in turnout gear has been introduced. In prior years, lawmakers didn’t pass the bill due to a lack of ready alternative gear for the state’s fire departments to buy.
“We held off on turnout gear until effective alternatives are available,” said Rep. June Speakman, D-Warren. “Those alternatives for turnout gear are now available, so now is the time.”
What makes forever chemicals so useful in products such as turnout gear also makes them dangerous. The chemicals, which have long been unregulated, and only recently understood, are especially good at repelling water and oils, a feature essential to any firefighter’s gear.
But those same properties also make PFAS and their associated products highly toxic. The substances get their nickname primarily from their inability to break down in the environment, with the specific chemical bond nearly indestructible.
The version of the new PFAS ban introduced by Speakman (H5019) was passed by the House in early March, and later recommended for passage in concurrence by the Senate Committee on Environment and Agriculture on May 7.
The Senate version of the bill (S0241) passed its chamber April 10, and was voted out of the House Environment and Natural Resources Committee last week, setting the stage for final passage sometime in the next few weeks.
Settlement Over Contaminated Fill Nets $10 Million Toward Children’s Health
PROVIDENCE — A May settlement with a Massachusetts contractor that worked on the 6/10 Connector project resolves a criminal case that goes back five years, with $10 million of the $11 million agreement to be used to improve the health of children living near the construction site.
Attorney General Peter Neronha said Barletta Heavy Division Inc. paid to resolve its violations of RI solid waste laws when it illegally dumped more than 4,500 tons of contaminated fill during the construction of the Route 6/10 Interchange and then lied about it.
Barletta, a Canton, Mass.-based business, dumped contaminated fill from the Pawtucket/ Central Falls Commuter Rail Station site and from a Barletta materials stockpile in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston, on the border of Pawtucket and Central Falls. The site of the Commuter Rail Station has been used as a rail yard for nearly 150 years and the presence of soil contaminants, including arsenic and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, has been previously confirmed.
Neronha said $10 million will go toward improving the dental and physical health of children living in city neighborhoods near the 6/10 Interchange.
