SMITHFIELD -- Smithfield residents have been invited to attend a community meeting on the preservation of green spaces, to be conducted on Monday by the state Department of Environmental Management and the Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council. The two agencies are holding a series of similar briefings in several communities.
The session, at 7 p.m. in Town Hall, will be the fourth and last on green spaces in Smithfield.
The subject is the Woonasquatucket Watershed Greenspace Project, a regional planning effort that seeks the advice of residents who live in communities drained by the Woonasquatucket River -- Glocester, Johnston, North Providence, North Smithfield, Providence and Smithfield. The intent is to map the resources identified by residents in each community as important to them and in need of protection.
A similar session will be held in Johnston on July 8 at a place to be announced. A public meeting also will be conducted in Glocester Town Hall at 7 p.m. on July 15. The date and place for a session in North Providence have not yet been set.
Jennifer Pereira, director of the Watershed Council, said yesterday that the information gathered will assist towns when they apply for government open-space grants.
The next step, she said, will be a presentation to the Smithfield Planning Board and Zoning Board of Review by Dodson Associates, consultants engaged by the Watershed Council under a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Forest Service.
The consultants may recommend changes to the town's comprehensive plan, Pereira said.
Areas of interest in Smithfield that have been listed so far include the Stillwater Dam area, which she said "has historic importance and a natural value." Such combined factors are described in professional language as "multiple resource value," she said.
Dodson Associates on Monday will describe a laundry list of natural, culture and recreational assets, and will recommend priorities.
According to a DEM statement, "Cultural priorities indicate opportunities for conservation as well as for celebration and interpretation of Smithfield's history and ongoing cultural life."
When asked for examples, Pereira said information collected by the project about the Stillwater Scenic Walkway, which parallels the Woonasquatucket River on the railbed of a defunct railroad, was cited recently when the town applied for money to connect the walkway with Hanton City Trail.
Information on the historic Harris Farm is also being used in a grant application by the Smithfield Land Trust, which hopes to purchase the development rights to the 60-acre farm, near North Central State airport.
If a deal is struck the farm would continue to operate, but the land could never be divided up for development.
Those with questions about Monday's sessions or about future meetings may call Pereira at 861-9046. She also can be reached by email at jpereiraXwoonasquatucket.org
