STATE HOUSE – The General Assembly’s special commission on the Kent County Water Authority yesterday issued its final report, with recommendations on how the authority can ensure its supply stretches to cover its water needs.
The agency faces “significant challenges” but no immediate crisis, the report concluded.
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Among other recommendations, the panel suggested that the KCWA consider additional connections to the Providence water supply system; develop well fields in the Mishnock and Big River areas; and reassess the need for the long-proposed Big River Reservoir project.
Many of the underlying causes of possible shortages are beyond the agency’s control, the panel observed. For instance, it was the expansion of Amgen’s pharmaceutical factory in West Greenwich, and the KCWA’s difficultly in committing to supplying water to the plant, that led to the study commission.
“Water doesn’t know any boundaries, so shortages that occur in Kent County could be caused, shared or solved by neighboring water supplies,” said Sen. J. Michael Lenihan, D-Dist. 35, East Greenwich, North Kingstown, Warwick, who co-chaired the commission with Rep. Raymond J. Sullivan, D-Dist. 29, Coventry, West Greenwich. “We really need to focus our efforts on a more regional scale to effectively plan ways to ensure that our area has the water it needs, now and in the future.”
Broader administrative and regulatory steps are needed, the panel said, including better consideration of the local water supply in local land-use planning and economic development.
“Kent County is an area that is developing rapidly both in terms of population and industry. While that growth is what drives the area’s economic engine, none of it can happen if there’s not enough water for it,” Sullivan said. “The water supply must be a consideration in all development plans from now on.”
Added Lenihan: “My personal opinion [of the KCWA] is that they are doing a fine job within the context of some restrictions on their ability to act, including a state permitting system that is uncoordinated, inconsistent and sometimes ineffective.”
Additional information, including the full report plus written comments that are to be added by commission members, is available at www.rilin.state.ri.us.
Information on the Kent County Water Authority can be found at www.kentcountywater.org.
