Business

9.17.2000

UPSTREAM FIGHT

We've spent millions to restore the Blackstone River. Will it ever pay off?

By BOB WYSS
Journal Staff Writer

The Blackstone River officially ends just after crashing over the Slater Mill Dam, and tumbling into the Pawtucket River, a name that comes from the Indian word for falls or place of rushing water.

Visitors on park benches watch mallards squawking on the river's glassy surface above the falls. Hugging the river bank is the Slater Mill, where Samuel Slater began the American Industrial Revolution in 1793.

The Blackstone's contribution to American history is so great that 14 years ago it was included in the national park system, joining such famous parks as Yellowstone and Yosemite. The area, named the John H. Chafee Blackstone River National Heritage Corridor, stretches 45 miles from Worcester to Providence. It is a necklace of parks, museums, and other attractions.

Two years ago the Blackstone was recognized as an American Heritage River, honored as one of the 14 greatest rivers in the nation.

Two hundred yards upstream from the falls, the logic behind that honor might be hard to discern.

Here, the current slows and the Blackstone is hidden behind buildings and asphalt parking lots that line its shore. The water is murky brown and green. A rusty bicycle lies where it was dumped, just below the Exchange Street bridge.

But quickly the Blackstone offers a surprise.

Two double-crested cormorants stand motionless and alert on a concrete abutment. Then, both birds take off. One flaps its wings hard, gliding off over the river, and is quickly lost in the distance. The second swoops, banks and circles, landing a short distance away on the water.

The scene is one of many on the Blackstone that make it a river of startling contrasts of beauty and blight, promise and problems.

The National Park Service has spent $17 million in seed money since 1986 on the Blackstone. That has been combined with tens of millions of dollars more from local, state and federal sources as well as private investors. The money has not gone to buy real estate for another huge park such as the Grand Canyon. Rather, it helped build a new museum in Woonsocket and a visitors center in Pawtucket. It paid for boats that take visitors up portions of the river, and helped build community parks from the river's mouth in Pawtucket to its source in Worcester.

More is planned. Work is underway on a bike trail, boat ramps, fish ladders, more visitor centers, and commercial ventures converting abandoned mills into apartments and shops.

The goal is to build more than pretty places.

Once the Blackstone Valley's economy roared. In the 19th century, more than a half million spindles created a tremendous din from the mills on the river. It was the greatest collection of cotton, woolen, and textile mills in America.

Today that manufacturing base is dead.

Now the communities working with the National Parks Service in the heritage corridor want to build a new economy, based on tourism and recreation, and the heritage of the old economy.

But will it work?

This river has another legacy: it was America's first polluted river. For two centuries it was an open sewer. It stunk.

James Pepper, the first superintendent of the Blackstone corridor, was greeted by a National Parks Service colleague one day. "Here comes the superintendent of pollution," quipped his colleague.

Rebuilding the Blackstone's economy will be a tough, upstream fight.

Photographer Kris Craig and I wanted to experience in a symbolic way the challenge facing those trying to rebuild the Blackstone corridor. So we decided to kayak upstream, against the Blackstone's current.

We were told that getting on the river is the best way to understand the Blackstone, its many faces, and the way it changes at every bend. We chose to travel the Rhode Island portion, over a period of several days, avoiding some stretches in Pawtucket and Woonsocket because they were too dificult to paddle upstream.

We push our kayaks away from the shore near the Slater Mill. The current is insistent, but not demanding.

A half mile above the Slater Mill Dam, the water is shallow and so clear we can see the bottom.

That is unfortunate. The river bed is littered with cans and bottles, as far as the eye can see.

A dam is ahead and the water is now too shallow to continue. We turn and paddle downstream.

Mile 2, Central Falls

Twenty-eight teachers, mostly from Rhode Island, board the the 34-foot Explorer at the Valley Falls dock just upstream from the Broad Street bridge where Central Falls meets Cumberland. The Explorer is run by the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council so that visitors can see the river up close. The Explorer, open but topped with a bright green-and-white-striped canvas awning, rocks as the teachers climb on and take their bench seats.

The teachers for the past week have been learning how to use the Blackstone as their classrooms.

Michael Ferry, who teaches at Woonsocket High School, attended a similar program last year on the Mississippi run by Southern Illinois University Prof. Robert Williams. It was so impressive that Ferry has begun a similar week-long program here on the Blackstone and brought Williams and his staff to assist. If this clinic works, he hopes to repeat it in the future.

The highlight of the week is today's boat trip. The teachers will be dropped off at four spots along the river so that they can test the water quality.

Capt. Joe Costa, a retired police officer, starts the engines and the Explorer glides upstream. It passes Valley Falls Pond, framed by trees and a church spire. It looks right out of Thomas Hardy and pastoral England.

"It is actually man-made," says Mindy Hidenfelter, the boat's naturalist and guide, of the pond. "It was created by Irish immigrants to create a water reservoir for the mills on this part of the river. That whole area is only two to three feet deep so we can't take the boat in there. Every year we have a lot of swan nests and waterfowl nesting in that area."

The boat passes two cormorants. Then, a great blue heron, startled by the boat, rises from the brush. Nearly four-feet tall, it has tucked in its long neck and dagger-like bill and stretched out its wings as it glides away. The teachers whoop in delight.

"It's a good day now," says Judy Burbank, a visitor from Illinois.

Williams, standing in the bow near Hidenfelter, marvels at the scene. "It's incredible to have this in the middle of all of this population," he says.

Ahead on the bank is a radio tower and the rusty steel skeleton supporting part of the screen of the long-closed Lonsdale Drive-In.

The teachers are dropped off in groups along the river banks.

Hidenfelter says the river is rich with wildlife, including turtles, muskrats, raccoon and deer. One day an osprey swooped down, caught a fish, and flew off while they watched. There are at least a dozen species of fish, including brown trout, carp and largemouth bass.

Hidenfelter, who moved here from Maryland, said that she has repeatedly heard how the mills damaged the river.

"When I get out here I could not believe how this river used to be so polluted," she said.

Others are also struck by how far the river has come.

"People are absolutely amazed by the river," she said. "They can't believe it.

Alison McDeedy is executive director of the Blackstone Valley Community Pollution Prevention Project, which works to promote the river. She wrote a grant for this teachers' program and is also on board the Explorer.

"When I began working in 1992, people were very derogatory about the river," she said. "Back in those days people would build houses and make sure they faced away from the river. Now we field questions all the time from people interested in the river and interested in spending time on it. It seems that everything is snowballing.

But how clean is the river?

"Good question," replies McDeedy.

Despite its appearance today, the river does not meet basic federal water quality standards. At times, as much as 90 percent of its flow is treated effluent from nine sewer plants that empty into it. Bigger problems are the raw sewage overflowing into the storm drains during heavy rains and runoff from parking lots and farm fields that carries everything from oil to fertilizer. The biggest unknown is how many toxic chemicals are buried in the sediment from centuries of pollution.

"You still can't swim or eat fish from this river," said McDeedy. "It would create significant health risks if people tried to swim in the river."

THE TEACHERS have been running tests for awhile now and Capt. Joe Costa decides it is time to pick them up.

Williams is in the first batch and he's worried by what the group has found.

"We all think there is something wrong with the water there," he said.

Their tests show the water, across from the parking lot of Ann & Hope, in Cumberland, has dangerously low levels of oxygen. But similar tests by other groups further downstream show much higher oxygen levels.

All of the groups found signs of life, but the invertebrates are predominately species such as worms, leeches and black-fly larvae that tolerate poor water conditions.

"The chemical tests (such as the one for oxygen) are only a snapshot for the day," Ferry explains later, "but the biological signs are a good indicator of water quality."

Still, Williams thinks the river has great promise.

"I love this river," he says. "It's not anything like what you expect. I love the history along it. And I like the feel of the wilderness in the midst of a city. Here you've got the wild look of a river and just a little way beyond you've got roads and freeways and factories. It's great to have that kind of diversity. I bet most people here don't even realize what they have. I bet most have never even seen this."

Mile 3.4, Lincoln

Lynne Rooney and Laurel Oldham struggle to tie six bicycles to the truck bed of the red Dodge Dakota. Helping are 12-year-old Zachary Oldham, Gabe Oldham, Neil Rooney, both 10, and 9-year-old Brianna Rooney.

The two families have just finished riding the Blackstone River Bikeway.

"It's short but it is very pretty," says Lynne Rooney. "We live in Scituate and to get to a bike trail is an adventure."

Laurel Oldham said they came well-prepared for the 3.3-mile trail. Everyone has water bottles and brightly colored helmets. Oldham has an emergency bike patch and pump to fix a flat tire. And a cell phone.

Rhode Island began the first phase of the $18-million bike path three years ago; it was completed in 1998. Now work is underway on the next leg. The state hopes to complete the entire 17.1-mile stretch in Rhode Island within the next five years.

On this summer night, all but 4 of the 45 spaces are full. The trail follows a portion of the Blackstone Canal, which was hand dug by Irish immigrants. Completed in 1828, it was put out of business by the railroads within 15 years. The canal is 50 feet above the river here and bordered by wildflowers: St. Johnswort, Queen-Annes-lace, mullein, sumac, wild grape, chicory, morning-glory, loosestrife and wild hosta. A steady stream of bicyclists, roller-bladers, joggers and walkers stream down the asphalt path.

Other attractions on the Blackstone aren't nearly as popular.

The riverboat the Explorer has carried 150,000 visitors since it began operations in 1993, financed by a $35,000 grant from the National Parks Service and another $35,000 raised privately by the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council. Robert Billington, executive director of the Blackstone council, says the boat has done a wonderful job teaching visitors about the wonders of the Blackstone.

But the non-profit tourism council has barely broken even running the Explorer.

"It's incredibly risky to run this boat," he said. "It gives you gray hairs."

Attendance has been sparse at times at the new $2-million Blackstone Valley Visitors Center in Pawtucket. One summer morning, John and Janice Macaulay, from Cohoes, N.Y., watched the introductory film on the Blackstone in the new 90-seat theater. There was only one other person in the auditorium. Afterward, they said they're eager to check out the old mills in the Blackstone Valley.

"It's interesting that they are spending as much to restore them," said John Macaulay. "Back home, they are just burying them. It's too bad because they are great buildings."

The Macaulays are just the type of visitors the the Blackstone Tourism Council wants to lure. But why isn't there anyone else in the theater today?

When the $2.8-million Museum of Work & Culture in Woonsocket was completed, the city had hoped to lure 80,000 visitors in the first year. The museum tells the story of the arrival of French-Canadian immigrants to New England, their work in the mills and the rise of the labor movement.

When the Rhode Island Historical Society was hired to manage the museum it cut the attendance estimate to 30,000 a year. That's how many have come not in one year, but in the first two. The museum has run a $120,000 deficit during that period.

Many Blackstone Valley officials say that completing the bike trail will change those numbers. The path will take riders right past the doorsteps of places such as the Visitors Center and the Museum of Work & Culture.

Mile 7.3, Lincoln

Every second, 861 cubic feet of water plunges over the Albion Dam in Lincoln. If the water were pouring into an Olympic-sized pool, it would fill the pool in two minutes. The Blackstone, the largest freshwater river in Rhode Island, falls in a white stream, roaring as it cascades down the 131/2-foot drop.

We are looking for a way to get on the river above the falls. We're driving on a dirt road on the western bank, bordering a railroad bed; our car bounces over the rutted and rocky dirt path. We drive past the dam until we spot a narrow opening in the brush. The Blackstone above the Albion Dam is calm. We can safely put in our kayaks.

Billington, of the Tourism Council, had warned of one problem on the river. "There is not one sign that says boat ramp on the Blackstone," he said.

He's right. At many points, it's virtually impossible to get onto the river. The Heritage Corridor and the Blackstone River Watershed Association published a canoe guide that lists at least eight access points. But the guide is 10 years old and outdated, so we drive up and down some roads fruitlessly searching for these access points.

Copies of the guide are also hard to find. There were none available at the Visitors Center in Pawtucket during one visit.

The National Parks Service in 1991-92 set aside $120,000 for planning boat ramps and portage paths on the Blackstone. So far about $45,000 has been spent and only a few access points have been developed.

"Getting a (boat) site built does not happen as fast as we would like," said Diane Wendland, a community planner for the Heritage Corridor.

Industrialists flocked to the Blackstone to harness the power of the river, which falls 438 feet in elevation in only 46 miles. At one time, there were 45 dams on the river. Today there are 17, along with three that have been breached.

A bigger problem is that acquiring the land and building a boat ramp can be expensive. A ramp near Manville is costing $100,000 to develop, says Wendland.

There are also few warning ropes or signs to alert boaters they are nearing waterfalls. A coalition of fire departments and rescue squads have been looking into installing a warning buoy with a navigation light, ropes with floats, tied to anchors on each side of the river. Few companies provide such systems, says Wendland, and an initial estimate for systems at four falls in Rhode Island came in at $47,877. She said one reason for the high cost is that it has to be strong enough to support several people and prevent them from going over the falls.

The river in this area, near the Route 295 overpass in Lincoln, has begun to live up to its promise.

Downstream from here Chris and I paddled the old canal that borders the bike trail. The water was placid, turtles sunned themselves, and twice we heard the sound of a startled muskrat plunging into the river.

North of Albion and Route 295 we glide through a placid, wooded valley. We spot a heron and then a hawk. The current is stronger and the banks of the river are painted with a panoply of lush, green trees. We can hear but not see cars passing on the left and an electric transformer humming. We spot a sign that tells us we are crossing over a petroleum pipeline running under the river bed. The river is surprisingly clean; we have seen virtually no trash since paddling upstream from Pawtucket.

WORD ABOUT the Blackstone is beginning to get out.

This spring Dan Meharg, a park service ranger with the Heritage Corridor, organized the Blackstone Paddle Club. Anywhere from 25 to 45 people every Tuesday evening paddle a portion of the river.

Julie Riendeau, of Uxbridge, Mass., says she likes the club because of the camaraderie it offers. She says her husband, Steve, took one spill already when they were kayaking alone, so they feel safer when other people are around.

"I think it's great," said Cheryl Thompson, of Glocester. "I did not expect the river to be as nice as it was."

Chris and I canoe about two miles upstream from Albion before riffles appear warning of rocks and shallow water. We negotiate the rocks, passing the Manville mill arches. They are all that is left of a mill reputed to have had the greatest turbines in America. It was damaged in 1955, first by a flood and then by a fire in the same year.

Now the Manville dam is ahead. We've almost reached the point where we can't go further upstream, when we find a streak of white water. We each take turns maneuvering so we can ride the water. On my third time up I bank and lean sharper than I intended to the left. Water pours into the kayak and it flips, throwing me into water, which is over my head. I accidentally take a big gulp of the Blackstone.

I survive.

Mile 9, Cumberland

We are playing tag with a great blue heron.

We stroke up the river spooking the bird out of its perch. It flaps its great wings and glides upstream to a new hiding place. After five minutes of paddling we reach the bird and then it is off again, upstream, to a new hiding place along the river.

We are heading toward Woonsocket; the natural splendor is giving way to a more urban environment.

We see papers, cans, a basketball, a soccer ball, portions of a baby carriage, a shopping cart.

Then we spot a smoke stack in the distance.

We can hear an earthmover, beeping as it backs up, working on the right bank. An outlet pipe from the Woonsocket sewage treatment plant is nearby. Brown water bubbles and gushes from the outflow into the Blackstone. It has a metallic smell.

The Woonsocket plant has long been criticized for the amount of pollution it contributes to the Blackstone. In some summers the rate of discharge was greater than the flow of the river.

Jan Reitsma, director of the state Department of Environmental Management, says the state has recently reached a new agreement with the plant that will sharply reduce the amount of pollution it produces.

It is clear as I am nearing the end of my journey that the Blackstone, while absolutely stunning in places, remains a troubled river.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been preparing a report for 10 years on how to clean up the river. The agency doesn't know when it will be finished.

The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers recently recommended a number of improvements, including buying the old Lonsdale Drive-In and restoring it to a wetland. That plan will be carried out next year. The Corps also estimated it would cost at least $1.5 million to build fish ladders on the lower four dams to bring back herring and shad. But that project is still in the planning and no one knows where the money will come from.

Michael Creasey, director of the Blackstone Heritage Corridor, says the goal is to make the length of the Blackstone swimmable and fishable within 10 years.

"That's quite a challenge," says Reitsma.

While no one has even dared tally the cost, Reitsma points to the level of political funding delivered by the late Sen. John Chafee and others and says the changes can happen.

"There is really a lot of enthusiasm there," he says. "I am constantly amazed at how much political will there is to get things done."

"I think we are over the hump," adds Creasey. "I think people believe in themselves."

When the Blackstone corridor was created in 1986 Congress gave it a 10-year life. A few years ago it extended that another decade. Creasey says the corridor designation has has encouraged government and community officials to work together. That spirit of cooperation will not end, he says, even in the unlikely event that the corridor project dies.

But is that enough to overcome all of the Blackstone's ills?

The blue heron passes the Woonsocket treatment plant and finds a perch in the last tree before the river narrows into a channel lined with banks of brown grass. Beyond are old red mill buildings.

When we reach the last tree the heron flies over our head, back downstream. He wants nothing to do with the urban river ahead. We can hear the sound of thunder. A storm is approaching. We also know the river ahead is rife with rapids and whitewater.

We turn around, following the heron, again playing chase, paddling to escape the storm.

Mile 16.9, Blackstone, Mass.

I have one more destination on the Blackstone.

Blackstone Gorge.

I have left the kayak and and Chris behind. I travel by car into Massachusetts until I find a sign for the gorge -- the only sign -- on County Road in Blackstone. The road passes old mill houses and dips down a hill, the asphalt deteriorating. At the end there is a parking lot big enough for only four cars.

Ahead, through the trees, is the Blackstone, plunging over Rolling Mill Dam, into a tumult of boulders and rapids.

Massachusetts in the early 1990s bought about 190 acres here in the Blackstone Gorge, sometimes called High Rock Gorge. I've been told the view is spectacular.

I follow the path to the left that follows the river. After a short stroll, according to my map, I have now returned to Rhode Island.

I've been thinking about how public officials believe that political clout and community involvement will restore the Blackstone and lure visitors.

I remember a story Robert Bendick, the former Woonsocket city planner and state DEM director in the 1980s, told me about the Blackstone. When the idea of a national park on the river first surfaced, he said, some local residents were not enthusiastic.

"Things were so grim back in the 1970s that people who had inherited the remnants of the Industrial Revolution had mixed feelings," he said. "They had been exploited by the mill owners who walked away from here. Some had mixed feelings about the past and about their own heritage."

That all changed after Congress created the corridor, said Bendick. Shame turned to pride. Pride turned to action. Ideas surfaced, money was found and new developments began.

As I climb the dirt path in the gorge I can hear, but not see, the river. A path splits to the right and I take it, coming to a cliff. The wind greets me, rustling the hemlock and laurel clinging to the cliff.

At least 100 feet below, in a canyon, I see the river. It roars over the rapids, strikes a house-sized granite boulder that the ice age rolled in here, slices past and then slides down a smooth rock landing in calm water.

When people urged me to explore the Blackstone, they told me I would be surprised. I was. This is by far the most beautiful spot I have found on the river.

But just as unexpected was the degree of pollution and blight that remains, 14 years after the corridor was established. The river needs to be cleaned. But big questions remain: How long will that take? How much more money should be spent? And finally, will the dream of tourism on the river ever be realized?