We wonder, in these recessionary times, how many jobs have been kept from Rhode Island by myopic opposition to international ports in the last decade. On the basis of watching what has been happening in East Coast states that have encouraged such development, and reaped many tens of thousands of jobs, we’d reckon it a lot.

In any event, a recent four-day symposium on the future of the Providence waterfront happily revealed an overwhelming consensus that residences do not belong in the middle of the city’s working port. As the 200 attendees saw it, there are plenty of other places to slap up condos. It makes no sense to put them where they might threaten the port — an economic engine for the entire region, and the direct source of hundreds of high-paying jobs that Rhode Island needs and the indirect source of thousands more.

The symposium also produced strong sentiment for creating a Rhode Island Port Authority, a tool for recharging the economy and making the most of the state’s advantages as a maritime location.

A port authority, along the lines of those in Massachusetts, Maine and Maryland, could help to protect and expand the Ocean State’s existing ports and advertise them to the outside world, drawing business and jobs to the Ocean State. Such an authority would give the state a fighting chance to grow its economy and keep taxes under control, rather than continuing the policy of handing a virtual veto over economic growth to narrow local interests opposed to port development.

Such a broad perspective has been sorely lacking under Governor Carcieri. He has bowed to the NIMBYs, some of the summer boating crowd and others who seem oblivious to the value of high-paying port jobs in Rhode Island, particularly at Quonset Point.

Fortunately, growing numbers of citizens — from the business community to union leaders to taxpayers of all stripes — are coming around to see that the Ocean State is wasting a tremendous resource in failing to exploit its maritime advantages. Given the increasing worldwide competition for jobs, Rhode Island cannot afford to squander its best opportunities to grow. It is absurd that a place nicknamed the Ocean State, and so close to transatlantic shipping lanes, has no coherent port policy.

There has been some recent activity along that front, however. Recently, state Sen. Paul Moura (D.-East Providence), who works for a branch of the Laborers union, introduced the Rhode Island Working Waterfronts Protection Act. The bill would give the Coastal Resources Management Council the power to designate areas as “working waterfronts” and to protect their economic vitality. The bill, filed very late, didn’t go anywhere in the just-concluded session.

That bill was problematic, largely because of the role it gives the CRMC. Under the separation-of-powers amendment to the state constitution supported by more than 78 percent of Rhode Island voters, the legislature is required to cede its role in executive functions, including activities of the CRMC, some of whose members are appointed by the General Assembly. It is high time that the Assembly save money and streamline government by closing up the CRMC and turning its executive functions over to the Department of Environmental Management.

Still, the basic idea of state law protecting the vitality of Rhode Island’s ports is a good one. The balance of power has shifted far too much toward local naysayers and such business interests as condo developers and away from the state’s overall interests. A new approach that gives local communities additional benefits for hosting ports, instead of virtual veto power, would make great sense.

Certainly, Massachusetts, right next door, seems to understand that ports are a vital economic resource. Under its Chapter 91 authority, it protects working waterfronts and gives the government authority to expand them and so increase their business.

Rhode Island is well behind East Coast states that seem serious about attracting jobs through ports, but it is still not too late to start. After all, its ports represent the largest wasted potential of any on the East Coast.