Dirty Beaches

Sometimes I'd just like to scream. So here goes: AAAARRRGGGHHH!

Let's see. We have a section of Third Beach permanently closed due to pollution beccause of a dirty brook which meanders through town (Bailey's Brook). The town paid a lot of money for land for a proposed town center off of High St. No go. It's polluted with arsenic. The town was given land off Valley Rd. for a police station. It's going up but not till we spent millions to clean up arsenic pollution there. We are helping to pollute First & Atlantic Beaches first with sewer leaks & overflow problems (supposedly now fixed). However the two outflow pipes onto the beach still drain there & cause problems.

In the works is a very expensive infared light solution to clean outflow from the two pipes & the moat surrounding the ponds for the Newport Water Dept. However, it is limited in scope & is not a cure-all. So how many times have I blogged about this? Too many to count. I would expect this infared system to be in-place by this time next year. But a lot of things can happen...

So surprise, surprise, two environmental groups are suing not only Newport but likely Middletown, too. Oh, the humanity! What a shock. Why would anyone want to do that?

Every week I go with my part at 6:15 AM to First Beach to test the waters. The results are not good. The testing for July (and we've had only miniscule amounts of rain) show that Kings' Park Beach is cleaner. Too bad the testing isn't conducted daily. The testing often shows acceptable pollution on some days, but really, do you want to go in the water then?

“We knew it was coming [lawsuit] after Shawn briefed us about it,” Rodrigues said. “It’s not like we’re ignoring the problem. While all of us are concerned about the environment, a lot of this comes down to dollars and cents.” (Sheley, NDN)

Gee, dollars & cents is of no concern in the Kempen affair. And now we have yet another lawsuit to worry about. Solicitor Holbrook & Town Admin. Brown: Handle it, handle it.

Both Newport & Middletown have been dragging their feet on this issue for years. Rep. Kennedy, Sen. Reed & Whitehouse have all promised to help. There isn't must that they can do, though, until the town/city make up their minds to solve this problem!

I've got a new link up. It's the Eastons Point Assos. They have a new, very informative website up with news & pix. Check it out. You can join (sign me up) & attend their annual meeting Aug. 7 at the Sachuet Point Wildlife center. Clean Water Access will do a presentation. We are the "water testers."

Here is Projo's take on the pending suit.

Think that this is just a beach/tourism matter? Not so, although those are quite sufficient, thank you. It's also an econ. development concern. We want good businesses to come & stay. Dirty beaches isn't exactly a c0me-on. Beaches are only test during the summer. Clean Ocean Access provides year-round weekly testing for Middletown's Atlantic Beach only.

This is the state site. They provide testing at various times & post the results. Unfortunately, must of the testing is not done very often. It's all about money, you know. We've been lucky in that while the beaches have been closed at various times, it's been a relatively dry summer so far, so there have been fewer than in the past.