I hope Patrick T. Conley’s June 21 sour grapes letter to the editor (“Killing the waterfront”) relieves his frustration with his misguided attempts to gentrify a highly productive and environmentally responsible industrial neighborhood into a glitzy Disneyland of waterfront amusements.

Dr. Conley is simply wrong when he claims that Promet “sandblasts lead paint.” Lead is not in the paints we use today and has not been used in marine-industry paint for more than 30 years.

Had Dr. Conley actually attended the Providence Zoning Board of Review’s hearings, he would know (and I’m sure he does) that the various public festivals and concerts held on his property were not only dangerous because of traffic-control issues, but also due to the compromised safety of allowing adults and children onto a designated environmental brownfield site. The two committee members who voted against his variance request were concerned both with protecting the unaware public, and also not putting the city into a questionable legal situation should someone claim illness as a result of the city’s approval of the site.

The environmental information presented to the Zoning Board of Review is on file there and at the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management. It is available to the public and speaks for itself. Dr. Conley knew full well what the environmental profile of his property was when he purchased it in 2004.

Despite Dr. Conley’s exaggerated head count of ferry and cruise-ship passengers, his vision of a “wilting Allens Avenue waterfront” is quite myopic. A recent economic impact report sampling only seven Allens Avenue area marine-industrial businesses revealed a strong, vibrant group of employers that generated $294 million in annual business sales and over $29 million in wages. Surely the city, state, and region would be worse off without this healthy economic engine.

Last June, the city held a series of public charettes regarding the Allens Avenue corridor. Despite the Providence Planning Department’s focus on changing the neighborhood to “Mixed Use Residential,” the varied participants from Allens Avenue, Fox Point, and other neighborhoods overwhelmingly voiced their opposition to waterfront condos and hotels, and instead endorsed the heavy industrial nature of the area.

Providence built its industrial base on its location at the head of Narragansett Bay over a century ago. Now, with the recent investment of $65 million in a dredged 40-foot shipping channel, Providence’s working waterfront affords our community the opportunity to become the hub of an economic wheel whose spokes reach 100 miles into New England.

If the city would finally conclude its analysis of the Allens Avenue corridor and remove the economic cloud placed over it by plans for a mixed-use wonderland, then marine-industrial businesses could start making the long-term capital investments they need to grow. But industry needs assurance that it will not be zoned out of business. The industrial businesses on Allens Avenue have offered an alternative zoning proposal to the city and the Providence Planning Department which recommends a “Mixed Use Industrial” designation, encouraging the development of compatible uses such as office buildings rather than residences and hotels. Hopefully its adoption will allow industry to invest for the long term, thus allowing the city to grow jobs as well as taxes.

Sadly, the only person “killing the waterfront” is Patrick Conley, whose grandiose plans are completely out of character with Providence’s economically essential working waterfront.

DAVID A. COHEN

Providence

The writer is president of Promet Marine Services Corp.