Rhode Island’s aging water and sewer infrastructure poses significant environmental and health risks that will increase in the coming years, and the state’s municipalities don’t have nearly enough money to address the problem, according to a national report being circulated locally by the state’s most visible environmental watchdog group.
In particular, the need to upgrade overtaxed wastewater treatment plants, and failing water and sewer lines throughout the state far exceeds federal funds available for the projects, according to the report, published Oct. 2 by Food and Water Watch, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit consumer advocacy group, and circulated locally by Save The Bay.
The R.I. Department of Environmental Management’s most recent priority list for water and sewer projects carries a $912.6 million price tag for wastewater infrastructure spending, while its most recent federal allotment for such projects was $7.2 million – enough to finance 1/125th of its needs, according to Food and Water Watch, which compiled similar numbers for all 50 states and calls for the creation of a national trust fund for water infrastructure projects.
“To get clean beaches, open shellfish beds, thriving eelgrass beds and smaller dead zones, we must invest in our wastewater treatment facilities and help local homeowners to upgrade their systems,” said Curt Spalding, Save The Bay’s executive director. “To get clean, reliable water supplies, we must replace leaky water pipes and reclaim reserve water supplies lost to contamination in water systems throughout Rhode Island.”
Rhode Island’s water and sewer infrastructure, most of which is many decades old, is breaking down, increasing the need by local cities and towns for financial assistance to pay for the projects, said Jane Austin, Save The Bay’s director of policy and advocacy.
One of the clearest signs that Rhode Island’s aging water and sewer infrastructure is stressed beyond capacity is the sharply increased number of beach closings and advisories in recent summers, as health officials close the state’s beaches to protect beachgoers against elevated levels of bacteria associated with fecal contamination, Austin said.
Rhode Island experienced 256 beach closures and water advisories in 2006, an increase from 57 in 2005, according to the Food and Water Watch report. (The numbers of beach closings and water advisories this past summer were not available.)
Many of the beach closings were the result of overflows of raw sewage into Narragansett Bay from the Wave Avenue pump station in Middletown, a common occurrence in recent years that culminated in 2006 with a major break in the pipe that transfers sewage from the pump station to Newport’s sewer system, Austin said.
In that instance and at other times in recent years, state environmental officials were forced to close shellfish beds contaminated by poisonous bacteria.
“They’re taking steps now to correct that, but that’s just an example of aging infrastructure,” Austin said.
Rising levels of unsafe bacteria and other contaminants in Rhode Island’s waters also have been caused by failing septic systems and storm water runoff, she said.
The increasing number of sewage overflows into Rhode Island’s waters release also threatens the state’s wildlife and natural habitats. According to the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s 2000 survey of the state’s water, 33 percent of assessed wetlands and 17 percent of the state’s lakes are environmentally impaired, while 72 percent do not fully support aquatic life and 25 percent do not fully support shellfish harvesting, according to the Food and Water Watch report.
Those findings were supported by a report card of Narragansett Bay’s health released early this year by Save The Bay, which found a sharp decline of fish and shellfish and a rise in algae in the bay and its estuaries. The problem is largely being caused by treatment plants that are filling The Bay with nitrogen-heavy wastewater, reducing the amount of dissolved oxygen in the waters, according to Save The Bay.
Save The Bay is working with Gov. Donald L. Carcieri, state lawmakers and local land trusts and watershed groups throughout the state to get a bond issue on the 2008 ballot that would infuse about $50 million into the state’s water revolving fund, Austin said. Limited federal funding for water and sewer projects is only available to states that can match the grants, she said.
The bond also would provide a smaller amount of funding to municipalities for sewer and septic upgrades, and likely would include open space and habitat and buffer restoration funds as well, Austin said.
Carcieri included the bond issue last year as part of his proposed budget, but the General Assembly did not act on it. This fiscal year, Austin said she believes the state’s lawmakers will move to put the bond issue before voters in 2008.
Historically, Rhode Island residents have overwhelmingly approved similar clean-water bond issues, she said. The last one that was put before voters and approved was in 2004, and Austin said the state is in urgent need of another bond issue to fund water and sewer projects.
“We’re going to try to make sure Rhode Islanders understand what the nature of the need is, not only statewide but in their local communities,” she said. •
