For Release: June 16, 1997

Contact: Susan Kiernan 277-3691

Stephanie Powell 277-2771 ext. 4418

PROVIDENCE - Frederick Vincent, acting director of the RI Department of Environmental Management announced today the award of more than $700,000 in water pollution abatement grants to farms, restaurants, manufacturing facilities, and other private entities.

"A vast range of pollution prevention activities will be accomplished by the 21 grant recipients, from solving the Inn at Castle Hill's long-standing sewage disposal problem in Newport to containing runoff from the Perra Farm in Warwick," Vincent said.

"Agricultural runoff is one of many sources of nonpoint pollution that affect water quality, and Rhode Island farmers, knowing this, are instituting best management practices as they are able," Vincent said. "Four of the grants will help Rhode Island farmers pay for improvements to farming practices that will have a real impact on our water quality."

The Perra Farm is being awarded $41,420 to expand its interim manure containment area and stabilize a drainage way that flows through the farm to Hardig Brook, a tributary to Greenwich Bay. Runoff from an uncontained manure storage pile at Perra Farm was implicated a significant wet weather source of pollution after Greenwich Bay was closed to shellfishing several years ago.

The Arruda Dairy Farm in Tiverton is being awarded two grants totaling up to $82,972 to alleviate polluted runoff to Stafford Pond from wastes generated by its 180-cow herd. The funds will be used to construct a manure containment area and to construct a vegetated filter area and system of settling basins. Stafford Pond is plagued by excess nutrients, evidenced by increased algal blooms. A water quality study of Stafford Pond which DEM funded with a Nonpoint Source Pollution Management grant, notes that the Arruda Dairy farm is a suspected source of nutrients contributing to the blooms.

Also in Tiverton, the Carvalho Dairy Farm is being awarded $6760 to construct concrete pads and roads for manure stacking, storing and composting to remove the threat of ground and surface water contamination to the Adamsville Brook watershed. Manure from the 40 milking cows at this small farm exceeds the capacity of the 14 acres of land to assimilate it.

The Inn at Castle Hill in Newport, which has been searching for a practical way to replace its aged and failing septic system for a number of years, is being awarded $$75,000 for construction of a sewer line to tie into the municipal sewer system, three miles away. Situated on top of a rock, Castle Hill has been unable to find an acceptable site for an additional septic system, and even alternative septic system technologies were not suitable for the geology of the area. Working with its neighbor, Oceancliff, the City of Newport, and DEM, a sewer agreement was negotiated, meeting all city and state concerns, and a sewer system will be privately installed by Castle Hill and Oceancliff.

Grants are also being awarded to connect three other businesses to municipal sewers: the Christian Brothers Center and Ocean Tides, Narragansett, $75,000; the Greenwich Village Association, East Greenwich, $45,100; and the bakery at Wright's Farm, North Smithfield, $21,750.

The Point Judith Fishermen's Co., Narragansett, is being awarded $69,850 to install a pretreatment system to treat fish waste.

Six manufacturers are being awarded funds to install closed loop systems in their manufacturing processes to reduce the discharge of pollutants and reduce the volume of their wastewater. Closed loop systems, encouraged by DEM's Pollution Prevention program, have significantly reduced metals in wastewater as well as wastewater volume. The companies and amounts are: Contract Specialties, Inc., Providence, $43,990; Future Finishing Technologies, Johnston, $12,610; Tanya Creations, Inc. East Providence, $37,200; A& F Plating Co., Providence, $7325; LuTone Plating Co., Providence, $44,000; and Coverluxe, Inc., Woonsocket, $23,534. Two manufacturers will receive funds for neutralizing pH levels in their wastewater discharge: Westwood, Inc. (Rochambeau Worsted Company), Manville, $54,686; and Microfibres, Inc., Pawtucket, $73,563.

Three restaurants will receives funds to install grease recovery units: Mulhearn's Pub, East Providence, $2648; Thailand Restaurant, Providence, $2748; and Johnson and Wales University's Airport Center East Dormitory, Warwick, $7000.

Our Lady of Czenstochowa, Coventry, will receive $11,110 to install a new septic system.

The funds are the third and expected last round from the $1.5 million Nongovernmental Water Pollution Control Facilities Fund, part of the RI Clean Water Act Environmental Trust Fund, a bond fund approved by Rhode Island voters in the 1980s. The program, which provides funds to existing businesses for water pollution abatement, is not designed to help a business increase productivity, but to bring what is currently in operation into compliance with clean water requirements.

"Having the bond funds available to help Rhode Island businesses has been important to them," Vincent said. "Perhaps their value was best summed up in one of the applications we received. In commenting on how much the company wanted to address its pollution problem, they said, 'The benefit to the environment has long been a thought, a desire, and a devotion. But it has not been affordable until now... with possible funds from DEM. This is the direction that America, the residents, and our businesses need to go. It is hard to express in words what this means to all of us.'"