U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse Tours East Providence Treatment Plant

U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) toured the Narraganset Bay Commission’s Bucklin Point Wastewater Treatment Facility in East Providence Friday in an effort to highlight positive environmental and conservation efforts in Rhode Island.

The tour and effort came one day after the Senator introduced legislation for the National Endowment for the Oceans, Coasts, and Great Lakes. The bill’s main goal is to “protect, conserve, restore, and understand the Nation’s Ocean’s coasts, and Great Lakes.” In this effort, funding would be made available for research, conservation, restoration, and create a cohesive plan for progress which the bill states is currently poorly coordinated.

“We need a permanent source of funds for the research and the restorations that is required to maintain the kind of ocean economy that has been such an important part of Rhode Island’s history,” Whitehouse said.

He said he went to the facility Friday because “the kind of work that Rhode Island does to find greener and cleaner ways to treat our wastewater is the sort of study in restoration and research work that the National Endowment could support.”

The tour took members of local environmental organizations such as Ames Colt of the Rhode Island Bays, Rivers, and Watersheds Coordination Team, Kevin Essington of the Nature Conservancy through the facility to show the treatment facility in action.

According to Jamie Samons, public affairs manager of the Narraganset Bay Commission, the 55 acre facility’s mechanical footprint (the amount of machinery on the land) is actually only a small portion of the land used. It also serves as a conservation area for wildlife in the area and works to be receptive to the concerns of the neighborhood while researching ways in which more efficient treatment processes might benefit the environment.

Jennifer Specker, Associate Professor of Oceanography at URI and Associate Director of the Rhode Island Science and Technology Council, said the NBC does much more than just get waste in from one side to another. NBC also offers conducts a large amount of research which would help clean pollutants out of the environment, such as a moss study which hopes to pull arsenic out of the water.

 The bill, which was promoted by the Gulf Oil Spill in 2010, is sponsored by Whitehouse and co-sponsored by Senators Olympia Snowe (R-ME),  Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Inouye (D-HI), Stabenow (D-MI), Nelson (D-FL), and Landrieu (D-LA). It would create a resource for national, state, regional, and private grant seekers to apply for aid in order to The legislation.

If passed, funding for the bill would be derived from the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund. Additional funding would come from a portion of federal fines for violations occurring in the Economic Exclusive Zone (EEZ), which reaches 200 miles off the United States’ coast, and 12.5 percent of the revenue generated from offshore renewable energy developments.

The dissemination of funds would be made available to grant applicants after the fiscal year 2011. Grant applicants must submit a general five year plan, a one year plan with schedules and proposed outcomes of works, and describe how the projects goals align with the Endowments.