During the last two years, 125,000 cubic yards of clay and soil have been removed from Town Pond in Portsmouth to restore it to health. In this photo from September, Thurston Gray, of Portsmouth, a volunteer with Save the Bay, checks the salinity.

Journal File Photo / Mary Murphy

State, federal and local officials celebrated last week the completion of the restoration of Town Pond in Portsmouth.

The $4.6-million project was designed to essentially reverse damage done by the Army Corps of Engineers in the 1950s when it dredged the Mount Hope Bay shipping channel. Dredge materials were dumped in what was a salt pond. The materials blocked off saltwater access, allowing invasive phragmites to proliferate.

In the mid-1990s, various officials started talking about reversing the damage.

The Army Corps took the lead, with support from the state Department of Environmental Management, the Coastal Resources Management Council, the town, the Aquidneck Island Land Trust, the Narragansett Bay Estuary Program and Ducks Unlimited.

During the last two years, 125,000 cubic yards of clay and soil were removed. Some were used to build a berm to separate the pond from the freshwater Founder’s Brook. A walking trail and parking area were added.

Last September, the channel to the pond, also known as Boyd’s Marsh, was reopened and saltwater returned for the first time in 50 years.

During ceremonies on Monday, Col. Curtis Thalken, commander of the Army’s New England district, said the restoration project “is now providing meaningful and productive ecological improvements and enhancements to this area of Rhode Island.”

DEM director W. Michael Sullivan said the project “enhances the productivity and ecological value of the area by providing habitat for coastal fish and wildlife such as shellfish, flounder and other finfish, herons, egrets and waterfowl.”

The project restored nearly 12 acres of marsh, 3.2 acres of mud flats and 8.2 acres of open water.

CRMC to review plan for 58 units

A plan to build 58 housing units on 35 acres in Charlestown, south of Route 1, will be considered by the Coastal Resources Management Council Tuesday night. CRMC staff members have expressed concerns that the project will not help efforts to improve water quality in nearby Green Hill Pond and that its density is double that allowed by local zoning ordinances.

The extra density was being sought under the provisions of the state’s affordable-housing law.

The project is proposed by Randall and Josephine Drake and Stasiunas builders. It has been approved by the town Planning Commission.

Currently, there are two houses on the tract at 3900 Old Post Rd. The Randalls want to build 24 single-family houses and 8 multifamily structures that would contain four units each. They also want to build 3,200 feet of new roads.

The CRMC staff report that the project is slated for an area labeled “Lands Developed Beyond Carrying Capacity” by a CRMC special area management plan, but the project appears consistent with the CRMC’s regulatory requirements.

It is also in the watershed of Green Hill Pond, where water quality is low due to excessive flows of nitrogen and bacteria.

The staff said environmental impacts from the project could be minimized if the CRMC imposed conservation easements on wetlands on the site, required special leaching fields to reduce the flow of nitrogen to the pond and mandated landscaping practices that limit the need for watering.

Letters of opposition have been submitted by the Charlestown Conservation Commission and the Salt Ponds Coalition.

The proposal will be heard at the CRMC’s semimonthly meeting at 6 p.m. at the Narragansett Bay Commission headquarters in Providence.

The agency has also scheduled a presentation by Lawrence Taft, executive director of the Audubon Society of Rhode Island, and it will consider requests for permits for a floating dock off Thames Street in Newport, a three-bedroom house on Ocean Road in Narragansett, modifications of the perimeter permit for the Cove Haven Marina in Barrington and changes in the pier and floats owned by the Arches Property Owners Association in Charlestown.

2 Web magazines on environment

For people interested in the environment, Yale University is offering two new Web-based sources of information.

The newest is Yale Environment 360, an online magazine dedicated to covering the global environment and edited by Roger Cohn, former editor of Mother Jones and Audubon magazines.

The Web address is: http://e360.yale.edu/.

The current edition includes articles by well-known writers such as Bill McKibben and Elizabeth Kolbert and others on climate change, water scarcity, the Amazon jungle and biodiversity.

The magazine is published by the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and Yale University, with financing from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

The other site is called the Yale Forum on Climate Change & the Media, at yaleclimatemediaforum.org.

As the title suggests, the site seeks to create dialogue among scientists, policymakers and the media on climate change.

The current issue carries articles on why so many television meteorologists are climate change skeptics, an upcoming network news feature on how experts see the world’s condition in 2100, and misconceptions about climate change.

Support for the site comes from the Yale Project on Climate Change, the Grantham Foundation for Protection of the Environment and individual donors. The site is edited by Bud Ward, a veteran environmental journalist and educator.

DEM to fund local cleanup projects

The state Department of Environmental Management is preparing to distribute money for projects to restore brownfields and to stop nonpoint sources of pollution.

The agency plans to allocate $200,000 to assess sites contaminated with hazardous substances and $200,000 for sites contaminated with petroleum.

A meeting is set for June 25 at 3 p.m. at DEM headquarters to solicit applications and answer questions.

To obtain an application or get more information, contact Cynthia Gianfrancesco at (401) 222-4700, ext. 7126, or write to Cynthia.gianfrancesco@dem.ri.gov.

The DEM is distributing about $4.4 million for local projects to abate nonpoint pollution sources, restore riparian buffers and build fish ladders. The deadline for grant applications is Sept. 5.

For more information, contact Jay Manning at (401) 222-4700, ext. 7254, or Betsy Drake at (401) 222-4700, ext. 7230.

The Environmental Journal is a listing of brief news items about the actions of individuals, organizations and businesses that affect the air we breathe, the water we drink and the landscape that surrounds us. If you have comments or suggestions, please contact environment reporter Peter B. Lord at (401) 277-8036, or by e-mail at plord@projo.com or by writing him, care of The Providence Journal, 75 Fountain St., Providence, RI 02902.