For Release: November 19, 1998

Contact: Roger Greene 222-4700 ext. 2402

Bob Ballou 222-4700 ext. 4420

PROVIDENCE - The Department of Environmental Management has completed its review of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the Providence River and Harbor Maintenance Dredging Project and submitted its comments to the US Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE). (DEM comments)

The comments were generated after a thorough review of the DEIS by scientists and engineers throughout the agency with expertise in marine fisheries, water quality, and other environmental disciplines.

In a letter sent yesterday to the ACOE, DEM Director Andy McLeod stated, "the Department has serious questions and concerns both with the Army Corps of Engineers' preferred disposal alternative and with the dredging methodology of the Providence River channel." Specifically, DEM recommends that the disposal of dredge material at Site 3 -- the 70-foot-deep hole in Narragansett Bay between Hog and Prudence Islands -- be rejected as environmentally unacceptable and that dredging activity be suspended during the months of March through July.

DEM's recommendations are based on the Department's analysis of data contained in the DEIS and other data referenced and included in a 26-page report and another 44 pages of supporting documentation sent to the ACOE along with McLeod's letter.

DEM bases its rejection of Site 3 on the following reasons:

• The area serves as a seasonal cold-water refuge vital to the migration habits and life cycle of recreationally and commercially valuable species such as lobsters and winter flounder, a function that would be compromised or destroyed by the reduction of depth associated with the disposal of dredge material.
• Survey data shows that it and the Bay's other deep "holes" support four times the density of finfish as do shallower waters and that the reduction of depth associated with dredge material disposal is predicted to result in a 48 percent reduction in finfish abundance.
• The site qualifies as Essential Fish Habitat under two federal laws -- the Sustainable Fisheries Act of 1996 and the Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Cooperative Management Act of 1993 -- and therefore must be protected from avoidable adverse impacts including those caused by the disposal of dredge material.

DEM bases its insistence on the use of dredge windows -- i.e., the suspension of dredging between March and July of every year -- on the need to protect the larvae of already stressed commercially and recreationally valuable fish and shellfish species from mortality associated with suspended solids and biological oxygen demand generated by dredging activity. The need for dredge windows is further substantiated by the status of the dredging project area as Essential Fish Habitat under the two federal laws cited above.

With regard to the proposed creation of a confined aquatic disposal site at Watchemocket Cove, DEM recognizes that there are specific local issues associated with the proposal. Based on DEM's environmental evaluation of the data provided in the DEIS, however, there is no indication that the proposal would be environmentally unacceptable.

Some additional recommendations relating to the DEIS are set forth at the conclusion of the 24-page report.

The 26-page report is available on DEM's web site at www.dem.state.ri.us in the Program Updates section It is also available for review in DEM's Office of Technical and Customer Assistance, 235 Promenade St., Providence. The 44 pages of supporting documentation, the vast majority of which is in the form of charts and graphs, is available only at DEM's Office of Technical and Customer Assistance.