For Release: August 5, 1997

Contact: Richard Ribb 277-3165

Stephanie Powell 277-2771 ext. 4418

PROVIDENCE - The fourth annual Greenwich Bay Festival, this year featuring hands on environmental exhibits and numerous shoreline activities, will be held Monday, August 11 at Goddard State Park in Warwick. Entrance to the park will be free due to Governor's Bay Day, as will all entertainment, exhibits, and rides.

The festival, sponsored by the Narragansett Bay Estuary Program of the RI Department of Environmental Management and the US Environmental Protection Agency, will be held from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., rain or shine, in the Carousel building by the beach parking lot.

"Greenwich Bay is an important resource to Rhode Islanders," said Susan Adamowicz, Greenwich Bay Coordinator with DEM's Narragansett Bay Estuary Program. "The festival is a great opportunity for people to celebrate the reopening this spring of more than 275 acres to shellfishing because of improvements to its water quality, and to learn what they can do as individuals to continue to improve conditions in the Bay's watershed."

As part of the festival, canoe and kayak rides will be provided by Baer River Kayaks, and nature walks will be conducted by the RI Audubon Society. The Roger Williams Park Zoomobile will show festival-goers the animals that live in the Greenwich Bay watershed and in their backyards and University of Rhode Island master gardeners will explain how to make backyards friendlier for these animals. The RI Shellfishermen's Association will display a quohogging boat, and DEM staff will teach youngsters how to build birdhouses.

As a special added attraction, the festival also will feature the Big Nazo Puppet Show.

Save the Bay will be on the beach seining shore waters with the help of participants, showing them what species live in Greenwich Bay. For those who want to get up close and personal with their favorite bay species, the EPA Narragansett Lab will be present with the Bay creature Touchtank, while Captain Conservation and DEM's OSCAR the Seagull hand out prizes and information.

The Greenwich Bay shellfish industry had contributed $4 million yearly to Rhode Island's economy before the bay was closed to shellfishing in 1992 due to pollution. DEM officials point to solving nonpoint source activities and they say improvements that led to the reopening of part of the bay this spring can probably be linked to improvements to Hardig Brook, part of the Greenwich Bay Initiative. Under the initiative, DEM, the City of Warwick, the Warwick Sewer Authority, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, the Southern RI Conservation District, and Save the Bay have been working cooperatively to reduce pollution from nonpoint sources. Homeowners in the Hardig Brook neighborhood have been fixing or replacing failed septic systems, and corrective measures have been taken by two main contributors to pollution of Hardig Brook. The Apponaug Mill, which had a direct discharge from its restrooms to the brook is now tied into the sewer system, and interim measures to correct manure storage procedures at an upstream farm have been implemented. All of these incremental reductions of pollution loads add up to improvements in the water quality, DEM says.