Everyone loves a good comeback story, right? Rhode Island’s great environmental champion, the late US Senator John Chafee, was fond of saying, “Given half a chance, nature will rebound. But we must give nature that half a chance.”
If we take care of nature, nature will take care of us. A nuclear facility can become a wildlife preserve. A river can remember its natural, free-flowing course after 250 years. A boat ramp can rise from a dumping ground and provide a neighborhood gateway to Narragansett Bay. We know this to be true because our members and partners gave nature half a chance, and nature rebounded every time. Rhode Island’s waterways are bouncing back, and I hope you will help us celebrate nature’s recovery by exploring these special places this summer.
Francis Carter Preserve, Charlestown
It’s hard to beat the meandering Pawcatuck River for summertime paddling. But until this year, there was no safe place to put a kayak in the water on a beautiful 5-mile stretch in South County. The only option was to pull off on the side of busy Kings Factory Road and scramble down the bank, dodging beer bottles and poison ivy. Local paddlers long advocated for something better, but the land on both sides of the river was private. The south side was held by the United Nuclear Corporation (UNC), which operated a uranium processing facility there in the 1960s and 1970s. After the facility closed in 1980, it was essentially abandoned while state and federal officials supervised an extensive cleanup of the site. The land was fenced off and forgotten.
After the property finally got a clean bill of health in 2011, The Nature Conservancy began negotiating with UNC and its parent company, General Electric. In 2015, it purchased the 270-acre property, adding it to the 840-acre Francis Carter Preserve. In the process, a mile of the Pawcatuck River was conserved and public access became a possibility.
The new, off-road kayak launch at Kings Factory Road puts this gorgeous stretch of river within reach of beginners and young families. The site doubles as a trailhead for a half-mile hiking trail, which offers scenic views of the Pawcatuck and opens a new door to one of South County’s most popular natural areas. None of this would have been possible without The Champlin Foundation, which funded the acquisition of the land, as well as investments in trail infrastructure.
Lower Pawcatuck River, Westerly
Wildlife abounds on the lower Pawcatuck River, from osprey to otters and from herons to herring. Saltwater mixes with freshwater in the estuary – the tidal portion of what has been described as the “last and best semi-wilderness river system” left in Rhode Island. Nevertheless, two miles upriver from the municipal boat ramp in downtown Westerly, the passage of kayaks and migrating fish was blocked by a concrete dam – the legacy of colonial-era industry. The dam no longer served a commercial purpose, but it diverted the river into a long bypass channel. In the spring, the river rushed through the channel with such force that it created dangerous conditions for inexperienced kayakers.
In 2015, The Nature Conservancy removed the dam and blocked the bypass channel in close partnership with the US Fish & Wildlife Service. Now that the river is back on its natural course, paddlers and fish are passing easily, sediment is moving downstream to replenish the barrier beach at Napatree Point, and local flooding has been reduced. The lower Pawcatuck River has been set free for the first time in 250 years.
Gano Park, Providence
The Nature Conservancy’s state director, John Torgan, notes that when he was a kid growing up in Providence, the rivers that ran through downtown were paved over, and where they entered the harbor, it stank. All of upper Narragansett Bay was horribly polluted. No one imagined that anyone would ever want to sail and fish and kayak in those waters. Today, the Providence River is the cleanest it has been in seven generations, thanks to the vision, foresight and hard work of many people and organizations. And public access to Providence’s natural resources is more important than ever.
In 2014, The Nature Conservancy partnered with the City of Providence, the RI Department of Environmental Management and the Coastal Resources Management Council to open a new boat launch at Gano Park, the city’s first public boat ramp. With funds from the US Fish & Wildlife Service’s Sport Fish Restoration Program, decades of illegal dumping were reversed and the area was made safe again for people and wildlife. The Conservancy helped design and manage the project through its staff environmental engineer, employing innovative strategies to prevent polluted stormwater run-off from entering the estuary from Gano Street.
Tim Mooney is the Communcations Manager of The Nature Conservancy in Rhode Island
