More than 40 years after 8,600 acres in central Rhode Island were set aside for a reservoir that was never created, plans are finally being made to begin drawing water from the Big River Management Area.
Two water supply bills being considered by lawmakers would set the stage for up to five wells to be drilled in the Big River watershed area in Coventry and West Greenwich capable of delivering 5 to 7 million gallons of water a day.
The R.I. Water Resources Board, the agency authorized to oversee the state’s numerous water supplies, is preparing to issue requests for proposals for two studies that would create a business plan, examine infrastructure issues and determine how much water could feasibly be drawn from the vast aquifer under the Big River area.
If they are installed, the well would represent the largest new source of water for Rhode Islanders since the Scituate Reservoir was created in the 1920s, said W. Michael Sullivan, executive director of the R.I. Department of Environmental Management and Gov. Donald L. Carcieri’s appointment to the R.I. Water Resources Board. “In one fell swoop, this would be the largest water-development project in a long, long time,” he said.
Many questions remain unanswered about the Big River wells, including where the water would be distributed, how much the projects and the water drawn from the wells would cost, and who would foot those bills.
But the water supply project is taking shape as a range of stakeholders who have sparred in the past about the need to create a new water source at Big River now agree the new wells would help to prevent serious water shortages in summer months, especially in central Rhode Island.
Water suppliers across Rhode Island are sounding alarms over soaring demand, particularly in the state’s growing suburbs.
State Sen. V. Susan Sosnowski (D-South Kingstown) has sponsored a bill that would create a new oversight board charged with planning the development of new water supplies and creating a priority list for the projects.
She, like some water supply managers and environmentalists, believes Big River would almost certainly be at the top of such a list.
“I think it’s time,” Sosnowski told Providence Business News. “We’ve got to move forward.”
Sosnowski’s legislation, and another water supply bill drafted by the Coalition for Water Security, a statewide coalition of 19 environmental and economic groups, both would encourage water conservation and give water suppliers the ability to pay for much-needed infrastructure improvements – including through raising the cost of water.
House Majority Leader Gordon D. Fox (D-Providence), is also expected to sponsor a bill in coming weeks.
The Big River Management Area, a large swatch of mostly undeveloped wetland and forest that runs through parts of West Greenwich, East Greenwich, Coventry and Exeter, is the largest publicly owned land parcel in Rhode Island.
In the mid-1960s, the state acquired the land – displacing many residents – with plans to flood it to create a vast reservoir covering at least 3,000 acres. But the project never happened for financial reasons.
Interest in building the reservoir picked up again two decades later, but was shot down in 1988 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Committees formed two years ago to take another look at Big River advised against a project to build the reservoir, which would take at least two decades and cost an estimated $1.7 billion.
The millions of gallons that could be drawn daily from wells at Big River could be piped to the Quonset Business Park, which has a limited water supply, or as a backup to the Providence Water Supply Board’s Scituate Reservoir, which supplies water to more than 60 percent of Rhode Island.
Economic development officials have sought a solution to Quonset Business Park’s water problem since 2005, when the Kent County Water Authority said it could not guarantee increased water supply to Amgen Inc., the pharmaceutical manufacturer in West Greenwich, over concerns that such a guarantee could jeopardize the water-starved system during summers.
State lawmakers subsequently passed a law that guaranteed Amgen all the water it needs. But Bristol Myers-Squibb, another pharmaceutical giant that was considering building a large plant in Rhode Island, decided against the project.
“There is inadequate water for any kind of meaningful increase in demand in Quonset,” Sullivan said. “We’ve already lost one major business in part because of some limitations on our ability to guarantee water.”
But the amount of water that Big River wells could provide would hinge in large part on the final bill that lawmakers pass into law. Specifically, the bill drafted by the Coalition for Water Security would limit the amount of water the wells could provide by making law the withdrawal standards already proposed by DEM, according to Henry Meyer, manager of the Kingston Water District and president of the Water Works Association, a coalition of 28 of the largest water suppliers in the state.
While the water bills sponsored by Sosnowski and the Coalition for Water Security would do much the same thing, the coalition’s legislation places a greater emphasis on increasing available water in the state through conservation and efficiency.
In particular, the bill would give water suppliers and municipalities pricing systems and other tools to curtail the watering of lawns during summer, which is responsible for a statewide doubling of water usage during the summer.
In the past, some members of the coalition have opposed calls for drilling wells at Big River, arguing the new water supply would delay a much-needed, statewide water conservation campaign.
But this time the coalition is on board to drill the new wells.
“We’re not opposed to putting the wells at Big River,” said Sheila Dormody, an advocate with Clean Water Action and lead organizer of the Coalition for Water Security. “But we don’t see it as an economically viable source of new water at this point. We’re going to get a lot more water, a lot faster, a lot cheaper through conservation and efficiency right now.” •
