RI’s Big River area won’t become a reservoir – for now

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RI’s Big River area won’t become a reservoir – for now

PROVIDENCE – With all the rain falling on Rhode Island in recent months, it’s hard to imagine that a controversy over the state’s water supply was, for decades, front-page news. 

The state went so far as to take by eminent domain about 8,500 acres of land from 351 property owners in West Greenwich, Coventry and Exeter in the 1960s to build a reservoir to supplement the state’s main supply, the Scituate Reservoir.

But the Big River Reservoir was never built, as environmental opponents questioned its need, as well as the accuracy of water and population projections put forth by its proponents.  

Finally, in 1990, the federal Environmental Protection Agency stopped the project, agreeing the reservoir wasn’t worth the wetlands it would destroy and that state leaders hadn’t adequately considered alternatives. 

More than 30 years later, what’s the status of Rhode Island’s water supply? Will there ever be a Big River reservoir?

A map of the Big River Management Area, which encompasses parts of West Greenwich, Coventry and Exeter.

State is still collecting data on Big River and its water

 Journal readers asked those questions after a recent story about the few remaining families who stayed in what is now the Big River Management Area, an area lawmakers in 1993 deemed protected open space until some unspecified time in the future when it’s to be used as a water source. 

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