CRMC, officials celebrate start of Pawtuxet Cove dredging project

October 5, 2005, WARWICK—Officials from the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers New England District, the U.S. Senate and Congress and cities of Warwick and Cranston celebrated the beginning of maintenance dredging work in Pawtuxet Cove with a signing ceremony on October 3.

To recognize the commencement of the project and the efforts of the agencies, legislators and officials, the CRMC held a ceremony, where officials including CRMC Chairman Michael M. Tikoian, Army Corps Colonel Curtis L. Thalken, U.S. Senator Jack Reed, Congressman James Langevin, and Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian and Cranston Mayor Stephen Laffey signed a letter of commitment for the dredging project. Also in attendance were Ken McKay, Governor Donald Carcieri’s chief of staff, and Timothy Mooney of Senator Lincoln Chafee’s office.

“Restoring Pawtuxet Cove is one of those unique projects that is both good for our economy and for our environment,” Senator Reed said. “For too long, maintenance of Pawtuxet Cove has been ignored.”

Pawtuxet Cove is located along the Cranston-Warwick city line at the mouth of the Pawtuxet River, which discharges into the west side of Providence Harbor. The cove supports 33 commercial fishing vessels, 217 recreational vessels and six water-dependent businesses including marinas and boatyards.

The work in the federal navigation project in Pawtuxet Cove involves maintenance dredging of the six-foot deep, 100-foot wide channel, six-foot, 14-acre anchorage, a 2,200-foot long sheltering dike and six-foot turning basin at the mouth of the river. Approximately 90,000 cubic yards of shoal material, which varies from silty sand to silt, will be removed from the three areas to restore that part of the cove to its original dimensions. Shoaling in the channel and anchorage has decreased depths since the last maintenance dredging in 1965, making the cove difficult to navigate.

Natural shoaling, or filling in, process has reduced available depths in the six-foot channel to as little as 3.8 feet below mean lower low water (MLLW) and the channel depths have been reduced to as little as 0.3 feet below MLLW. In 1965, the last dredging project in the cove, 207,000 cubic yard of material were removed from the areas.

Sediment testing has indicated that the dredge material is highly contaminated, and disposal of that material will be in Confined Aquatic Disposal (CAD) cells constructed as part of the Providence River and Harbor maintenance project, which was completed this spring. Burnham Associates of Salem, Mass. will perform the dredging work under a $1.1 million contract with the ACOE. Dredging activities in the cove will be restricted to the period of October through January to protect fisheries resources.

“This is a significant moment for the State of Rhode Island and the cities of Warwick and Cranston,” Col. Thalken said. “Numerous people have contributed a lot of hard work in the effort to get the Pawtuxet Cove dredging project underway. Now, with the support of Senators Reed and Chafee we are moving forward with the project and expect it to be completed this winter.”

The Providence River and Harbor Project Cooperation Agreement (PCA) was amended to include cost-sharing provisions for Pawtuxet Cove, which has a 10 percent non-federal cost-share requirement for the disposal costs, for which the cities of Cranston and Warwick split the $250,000 cost.

“This project has been a long time coming, and the RI Coastal Resources Management Council, along with the US Army Corps of Engineers, is eager to get to work on improving navigation in the channel and cove,” said CRMC Chairman Michael M. Tikoian. “This project will greatly improve boat travel in and out of the cove, which will benefit the fishing industry as well as the waterfront businesses that depend on the boat traffic.”

Officials from CRMC, Army Corps and Warwick and Cranston officials will also be gathering for a public information meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 12 at 6 p.m. in the Warwick City Council chambers to discuss the project.