DEM TO HOST OCTOBER 3 MEETING ON WOONASQUATUCKET GREENSPACE IMPLEMENTATION PLAN

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News Release
RI Department of Environmental Management
235 Promenade Street, Providence, RI 02908
(401) 222-2771 TDD/(401) 222-4462

For Release:	September 27, 2002
Contact:	Gail Mastrati 222-4700 ext. 2402 Stephanie Powell 222-4700 ext. 4418

DEM TO HOST OCTOBER 3 MEETING ON WOONASQUATUCKET GREENSPACE IMPLEMENTATION PLAN
Seeks Public Participation

PROVIDENCE - The Department of Environmental Management's Sustainable Watersheds Office is seeking public participation in developing a greenspace implementation plan for the Woonasquatucket River Watershed. To that end, the Department will host a public information meeting on October 3 to present an overview of the proposed plan for the six communities located, in part, in the Woonasquatucket River watershed. The plan aims to improve water quality in the Woonasquatucket River by protecting and managing existing forestland, and encouraging the restoration of contiguous forestland and undeveloped greenspaces.

Speakers at the meeting will outline opportunities for residents of the six communities - Glocester, North Smithfield, Smithfield, North Providence, Johnston and Providence - to become involved in the process of identifying environmental, recreational and cultural assets to be preserved, restored or established in each of the communities. Those assets will be entered into a Geographic Information System database, and residents will then be asked to identify ways to link them regionally via greenspaces.

Funding for the project comes from a $100,000 clean water action grant from the United States Department of Agriculture's Forest Service, issued to DEM in 2000 on behalf of the Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council and the six communities of the watershed. DEM has contracted with Dodson Associates to assist the communities with identifying their assets and creating Geographic Information System maps of the identified resources.

The October 3 meeting will be held from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Smithfield Town Hall, 64 Farnum Pike in Esmond. Asset identification meetings will later be held in each of the six communities.

The Woonasquatucket River watershed is a diverse geographic area that originates in the rural lands of Glocester, North Smithfield and Smithfield, and extends 18 miles into the urbanized communities of Johnston, North Providence and Providence. Half of its 43 miles of rivers and tributaries are impaired due to metals contamination from earlier industrial uses along the river, and from nonpoint sources of pollution such as runoff from parking lots and roadways. Greenspace protection is one of the most effective ways of protecting the water from nonpoint source pollution.

DEM has designated the Woonasquatucket River as a pilot watershed for the development of a collaborative, ecosystem-based approach to environmental protection, and is working closely with the Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council to enact this approach.

For additional information about the greenspace implementation plan, or if you cannot attend the October 3 meeting but would like to participate in mapping meetings in your community, call Jenny Pereira at the Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council at 861-9046 or Fred Presley at DEM at 222-4700 ext. 4417. They can also be reached by e-mail at, respectively, jpereira@woonasquatuket.org or fpresley@dem.state.ri.us.

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