Nonprofit uses Web tool to help clean Blackstone

The Conservation Law Foundation is training environmentalists and watershed groups to use Google Earth’s satellite mapping technology to identify parking lots and gas stations and other sites along the Blackstone River that could be polluting the river and its tributaries.
The effort, which began earlier this summer, is part of an ambitious campaign launched in 2005 by a coalition of environmental organizations and state regulators to make the Blackstone River clean enough for fishing and swimming by 2015.
The new CLF initiative teaches people who live along the river how to locate potential sources of storm water runoff into the river from their laptop or home computers, using Google Earth, which enables users to view any address or location in the world through satellite photos.
The Google Earth investigators can then report pollution sites to the R.I. Department of Environmental Management with a one-page form available for downloading on CLF’s Web site.
Stormwater runoff is one of the biggest sources of pollution in the river, said Cynthia Giles, the Conservation Law Foundation’s Rhode Island director.
“We were trying to figure out, how do we work with these watershed groups and individuals who are passionate about trying to protect their local water bodies, and give them the tools they need to make a difference in the water quality of their own water body?” Giles said.
The Blackstone River corridor’s legacy of intense industrial development has left the river, which runs from Worcester to Narragansett Bay, severely polluted with sewage, bacteria, heavy metals and other industrial wastes.
The river is not considered fishable or swimmable under state and federal clean-water laws, but since 2005 the CLF has worked with the Blackstone River Coalition – a partnership of many organizations, businesses, municipalities and agencies – to improve the river’s health.
Last year, CLF led an appeal of Woonsocket’s wastewater treatment plant permit, arguing that the facility dumps nitrogen, phosphorous and other harmful nutrients into the river. The city appealed the permit as well, arguing that it was too stringent.
The nutrients have reduced the level of dissolved oxygen in the river to the point that a healthy combination of fish and plants cannot survive there, and they have also contributed to algae blooms in Narragansett Bay in recent years, Giles said.
Both sides have been negotiating a settlement with the DEM for some time, and Giles said she hopes a resolution will be reached that results in the issuance of a new permit that limits the wastewater treatment plant’s emissions into the river.
“We’re hopeful that the resolution of that case will result in improvement of water quality in the Blackstone River in Rhode Island,” she said. “What we see in the Blackstone River is evidence of low dissolved oxygen and higher degrees of sedimentation and other indicators that there’s not enough oxygen in the water for the right combination of plants and animals to survive there.”
In the spring of 2006, the DEM issued rules restricting stormwater runoff at certain categories of facilities, including gas stations and auto shops. CLF hopes its Google Earth initiative will speed enforcement of the new rules by reporting facilities that aren’t complying, Giles said.
In June, the organization began training members of the Blackstone River Watershed Association and other watershed groups and land trusts along the river to use the Google Earth program and report their findings.
“It was very well received,” said Mina Makarious, a Harvard Law School student and summer intern at CLF, who has conducted the trainings. “The first time I did it I got maybe halfway through the presentation and people started kind of brainstorming sites that they could think of off the top of their heads.” •