Spillway at the Scituate Reservoir, near Route 12

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THERE HAS BEEN movement in the 2008 General Assembly to put the Rhode Island Water Resources Board into the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management.

This would be a disaster for the state’s drinking-water supply and for economic development. The Water Resources Board was established in 1967 for the express purpose of future regionalization of water supply from the 31 municipal systems now operating in Rhode Island. The sponsor of the bill, Providence Rep. Al Travers, also emphasized the need for a separate statewide legal body to oversee the water supply because of its importance for human consumption, agriculture, waste disposal, economic development and fire control.

These powers are built into the board’s legislative mandate. The Water Resources Board was preceded by Rhode Island Water Resources Coordinating Board, established in the early 1960s specifically to acquire land for the Big River Reservoir Water Supply Project.

Budget Article 45 in the budget before the 2008 legislature would move the board and the Coastal Resources Management Council into the Department of Environmental Management as a supposed cost-saving measure. These two small agencies (with very small staffs) do something that the DEM has never done and never will do — to be responsive to the public as well as to the designated elected representatives of Rhode Island’s government.

I began work at the Water Resources Board in 1968, when the agency consisted of nine people. Today the board has six people and is still doing its job. We cannot say that about the DEM since its creation from the Department of Natural Resources, in 1968. It has become bloated and less responsive than it was in the ’60s.

Here is an idea: If the state would like to save money, instead of getting rid of two small, responsive agencies, why not have the legislature look at slashing the giant DEM down to a responsive size and save some real money. Conduct a survey of the state consisting of homeowners, large employers, farmers, small-business people, etc., and see where they think some real money can be saved. And elicit this agency’s horror stories at the same time.

The Water Resources Board is an entity for the expressed purpose of protecting the drinking-water supply, the most important use of Rhode Island’s water resources.

The DEM’s mandate concerning water resources covers recreation, stream flow, fish and wildlife, and other needs. Most are at odds with aspects of the providing of public water supply for the health, safety and economic development of Rhode Islanders. Supply is too important to be put into the DEM multi-purpose massive agency. There is a reason the Water Resources Board was originally created as a stand-alone agency for water supply, and not added to a non-responsive agency like the DEM..

This agency has maintained a hostile relationship with the Rhode Island water-supply community in conjunction with groups like the Coalition for Water Security and others to control water-supply management, water-supply development or non-development. In essence, they are telling the Rhode Island public that its municipal water suppliers and the local governments involved are incompetent. The legislature and the local governments know that this is not true. Note that the Coalition for Water Security is made up of political activists who are without professional expertise in water supply. It is the same old story. Unfortunately, the DEM stream-flow models do not work and there is no one-size-fits-all minimum-flow standard that works for all cases.

The DEM has blocked the Kent County Water Authority attempts to add a new supply for its customers to the point where Kent County finally walked away.

The DEM is not a friend of public water supply. Legislators who favor economic development throughout Rhode Island as well as the possibility of the needed regionalization of the state’s municipal water-supply systems should think twice about placing the Water Resources Board (a small, representative, responsive agency) and its vast powers into a large and non-responsive agency like the DEM.

Bill Falcone is the retired staff director of the Rhode Island Water Resources Board, past president of the Rhode Island Water Works Association, and chairman emeritus of the Nationwide Public Projects Coalition. He lives in Sarasota, Fla., and Newport.