Jan Reitsma, DEM director.
Rhode Island has made progress environmentally, having improved air and water quality and having taken steps to use balanced development with land conservation. But Rhode Island also suffers from high ozone concentrations in the summer. Some 50 percent of its river and lake waters are now threatened by pollution. And the degradation of the state’s estuaries, which serve as the breeding ground for commercially-valuable fish, continues to concern environmentalists.
”On the one hand we’ve made a lot of progress,” said state Department of Environmental Management Director Jan H. Reitsma. “On the other hand we have fairly large bodies of water that are not meeting water quality standards.”
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For the past week, Reitsma has been conducting meetings around the state to find out what citizens think about these problems – and DEM’s plans to deal with them. Monday, Nov.22, he will hold his third and final meeting. It will take place at 7 p.m. at North Providence Town Hall, 2000 Smith St.
The meeting will give citizens a chance to comment on the draft of the department’s new 2000-2001 “work plan,” which details the department’s goals and priorities for the coming months. The document also speaks to Reitsma’s desire to make the department more efficient, effective, and accountable to the public.
His first meeting, held Nov. 15 in South Kingstown, competed with Monday Night Football and a town council meeting. Attendance was sparse. But those who did attend showed general support, Reitsma said. One of the questions was how the new initiatives would be paid for. To this, Reitsma replied that the work plan is not a wish list. It is a set of priorities and objectives that the department can reasonably expect to accomplish.
”In our view it’s a pretty realistic plan,” he said.
The plan is actually made up of several plans – one for each bureau and division within the department. It also includes two ‘watershed work plans’ that deal with DEM’s strategies for the South County Watershed region and the Woonasquatucket watershed.
Overall, the work plan sets specific goals in seven different categories: Clean air, clean water, ‘livable communities,’ healthy ecosystems, viable natural resource-based industries, open space and recreational opportunities, and open and effective government.
DEM will take the comments of citizens into account as it puts the final touches on the work plan next month. Anyone who would like to register a comment with the department on its work plan should do so by Dec. 15, he said.
Pollution prevention is one of its key components. For example, one of the goals is to cooperate in a regional effort to wipe out mercury emissions by 2003. Since medical incinerators are the chief source of mercury emissions in Rhode Island, DEM will encourage those who handle medical waste to improve their housekeeping. This will reduce the amount of mercury that has to be disposed, Reitsma said.
Similarly, in an attempt to keep pollutants from reaching the state’s waterways, the draft work plan calls for the department to complete the final phases of the state’s licensing program for septic system designers in the next two years.
Meanwhile, the department hopes to provide septic system loans to 22 of the 28 Rhode Island communities that rely heavily on septic systems by Sept. 30, 2001. The loans will help homeowners upgrade their systems.
One of the problems the state faces is non-point pollution sources – nutrient runoff from farms, lawns, and streets. While the state has been able to check the flow of pollutants from major sources over the past 20 years, these non-point sources still threaten surface waters, according to a draft executive summary of the report. For example, while most of the state’s lakes and rivers that have been assessed are safe for their designated use – drinking or swimming and fishing – almost half of these waterways are in danger of becoming so polluted that they will no longer be useful. A third of coastal waters is also threatened, according to the draft summary.
Further, 46 percent of the state’s 1,392 river miles and 25 percent of its lake acres have yet to be assessed by the department. One of DEM’s objectives, therefore, is to develop a strategy to fill in these data gaps by Sept. 30 of next year.
While Reitsma said he hopes to have the work plan completed before the end of 1999, he added that the plan would be updated next year as well. Already, he said, the department is using the plan to guide its operations.
”There will never be a perfect document,” Reitsma said. “We want to fine-tune it for the year 2001.”
