Status Report on the
Narragansett Bay Project

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he Narragansett Bay Project’s
recent designation to the National Estuary Program (NEP) represents a re-
newed commitment to improve and protect the environmental quality of
Narragansett Bay. Although the Narragansett Bay Project began in 1985,
changes in the NEP with passage of the Water Quality Act of 1987 im-
pelled the Narragansett Bay Project to review its progress and plans. The
resulting agreements reflect a formal partnership among the State of
Rhode Island, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the
Narragansett Bay Project. Designation is the partnership’s contract to meet
the requirements of the Act, to provide funding, and to take action on a
well-defined schedule.
The National Estuary Program began in 1985 when Congress and the
Environmental Protection Agency acted on the need for focused attention
to estuaries. Four estuaries — Narragansett Bay, Long Island Sound,
Buzzards Bay, and Puget Sound — received appropriations to initiate
comprehensive management programs. Albemarle-Pamlico Sounds and
San Francisco Bay were added to the NEP in 1986.
The Water Quality Act of 1987 provides new authority for the NEP. The
Act officially recognizes the Program, authorizes the EPA Administrator
to convene Management Conferences in estuaries of national significance,
and defines seven purposes of a Management Conference. Each of the
existing estuary programs, including Narragansett Bay, worked with EPA
to review its program and ensure consistency with the new Act. They
negotiated goals, schedules and commitments to meet the requirements of
the Act. Based on these commitments EPA Administrator Lee Thomas
officially designated each program to continue as part of the National
Estuary Program.
But schedules and goals are only the beginning. The Bay and its resources
need you — who live on the Bay, who live upstream away from the Bay,
and who visit — to help protect the Bay from pollution.

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esignation of the Narragansett
Bay Project (NBP) to the National
Estuary Program comes at the
midpoint of the five year project.
This provides an opportunity to
reexamine the purpose of the NBP
and to renew our commitment to the
Project goals.
The purpose of the NBP is to evaluate
the water pollution problems in
\arragansett Bay through an inten-
sive research program, and to de-
velop a comprehensive management
plan to protect and improve the
water quality and living resources of
the Bay. To accomplish this, a Five
Year Plan was developed early in the
project which outlined the research
needed to answer certain manage-
ment questions regarding the Bay.
The scientific information generated
by the research will be used by the
NBP as the basis for developing
recommendations for managing the
Bay. The end result of the NBP in
December, 1990, will be a Compre-
hensive Conservation and Manage-
ment Plan (CCMP) that will outline a
holistic approach to protecting and
managing Narragansett Bay.
Priority problems and goals for the
Bay were established through a
problem and priority assessment
process involving a series of meetings
and goal-setting workshops. These
workshops involved a full spectrum
of public and user groups, including
resource managers, academics, envi-
ronmental groups, industry people,
fishermen, and other Bay users.
The assessment process included
development of a five year plan and a
public opinion survey. The Project
Management Committee also re-
cently held an Issues Workshop to
further refine the list of priority
issues regarding Narragansett Bay.
The seven priority problems, identi-
fied below, were distilled from a
larger set of perceived problems in
order to focus the Project’s resources
more effectively. The Project will
reevaluate its priorities from time to
time as more information about the
condition of Narragansett Bay be-
comes available.
In addition, the Project realizes that
the current list of priority issues
should include problems that may
arise in the future. One goal of the
Project’s analysis of historical charac-
terization studies, water column
models and monitoring data is to
develop the capability of predicting
potential future problems. If prob-
lems can be identified before they
become severe, the impacts can be
minimized by preventive manage-
ment actions.
The following seven priority prob-
lems (not listed in order of priority)
have been identified by the Narra-
gansett Bay Project:
• Management of fisheries
• Nutrients
• Impacts of toxic contaminants
• Health and abundance of living
marine resources
• Health risk to consumers of
contaminated seafood
• Land use
• Recreational uses
Because of the Bay-wide and interre-
lated nature of these problems, the
Narragansett Bay Project is taking a
Bay ecosystem approach to the study
of problems and development of
action plans to address these prob-
lems.
The Project also is working to expand
and coordinate existing programs to
be more effective in protecting the
Bay and its resources. Rhode Island’s
Department of Environmental
Management (DEM) has primary
responsibility for water quality
management programs. DEM’s
approach toward water quality
management recently shifted to ‘ater
quality-based pollution limitations
because Best Available Treatment
requirements for industrial discharg-
ers and secondary treatment for
sewage treatment plants have failed
to produce compliance with water
quality standards. The agency also
has a Phase II Basin Plan process
underway under Clean Water Act
Section 205(j). This process is being
coordinated with the Narragansett
Bay Project. DEM also conducts
biweekly monitoring of shellfish
growing areas for total and fecal
coliforms in the upper Narragansett
Bay, and weekly bathing-area moni-
toring, sanitary surveys of shellfish
growing areas, and monitoring for
paralytic shellfish poisoning.
Other State agencies, such as the
Coastal Resources Management
Council, the Office of State Planning,
and the Department of Health have
important data collection and/or
management responsibilities. The
Bay Project is serving a valuable role
in coordinating these programs with
the activities of other agencies and
groups and research by academic and
governmental institutions. The
Project’s coordination helps to apply
the results of research to the practical
needs of managing and improving
the environmental quality of the Bay.

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Management of
Fisheries
The value of Narragansett Bay to
Rhode Island is reflected in the
importance of commercial fisheries.
The quahog (hard clam) fishery,
estimated to generate S15 million per
year, is the State’s largest, with winter
flounder being the most important
finfisherv. Several problems face
these fisheries, including overexploi-
tation and effects of adverse water
quality. Management and protection
of these fisheries to ensure future
fishery stock is a high priority.
In order to assess the status of these
two fisheries and the health of the
resources, the Narragansett Bay
Project has funded a number of
studies designed to identify specific
problems.
Several research projects have been
conducted on the quahog, including
studies on population size, incidence
of disease in the clams, historical
trends of the fishery, levels of toxic
metals and organics in the tissue, and
bacterial levels in the clams. Prelimi-
nary evidence indicates that the
clams are quite hardy and appear to
be mostly unaffected by poor water
qua litv. However, polluted water
does pose a threat to human consum-
ers due to high levels of bacteria and,
possibly, toxic contaminants. The
quahog takes up microbial pathogens
from the water close to the sediment,
resulting in the closure of shellfish
beds. The loss of shelifishing
grounds because of unacceptable
water quality affects both recreational
and economic uses. Currently,
approximately one third of the Bay is
closed to sheilfishing on a permanent
or conditional basis.
The Project funded the Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) to
conduct a sanitary survey of Mount
Hope Bay to evaluate the feasibility
of reopening portions of the Bay to
shelifishing as a result of the recent
improvements in the Fall River,
\ I assachusetts, sewage treatment
plant. The FDA determined that the
treatment plant is working well, hut
discovered significant illegal dry
weather discharges in the
Quequechan River, an underground
river flowing through Fall River. The
FDA characterized it as “a river of
sewage”. As a result of this study,
the EPA has taken enforcement action
against Fall River to eliminate these
discharges.
Winter flounder studies currently
underway include investigations of
disease incidence, toxic contaminant
levels in edible tissue, historical
fishery trends, and larval survival
viability.
Results of these and additional
studies will be used to evaluate the
status of the fisheries and to make
recommendations on how to manage
them better.
Nutrients
Significant increases in the concentra-
tion of nutrients in the Bay have led
to concern about eutrophication
problems. Higher levels of nitrogen,
and associated changes in the plank-
ton populations, have been measured
in the upper Bay and may be linked
to effluent from sewage treatment
plants. Effects of these changes on
the living resources within the Bay in
terms of lowered dissolved oxygen
and food web dynamics are of
concern to the Project. The changes
in nutrient levels and the ecosystem
of the Bay are being evaluated by
scientists from the University of
Rhode Island who are conducting
studies of plankton dynamics and
relating changes to nutrient levels in
the Bay. The Project is also funding
development of a eutrophication
model which will be used in predict-
ing effects of changes in nutrient
levels in the Bay on the ecosystem.
Impacts of Toxic
Contaminants
Narragansett Bay receives significant
quantities of toxic pollutants from
point and nonpoint sources, with
pollution entering the Bay directly or
via its tributaries. Industries and
municipalities within the drainage
basin are prime contributors.
Projects funded by the Narragansett
Bay Project have been assessing the
levels of contaminants in living
resources, the water column and
sediments, as well as the effects of
these toxics on the ecosystem. Uni-
versity of Rhode Island investigators
conducted a series of Bay-wide
cruises in 1986 to look at water
quality throughout the Bay. An
additional series of cruises, concen-
trated in the upper Bay and Provi-
dence River, were conducted in 1986
and 1987. Both cruises measured a
whole suite of parameters including
heavy metals, organics, and nutrients.
These data provide a good picture of
the current condition of the Bay water
quality. Concentrations of toxic
chemicals decrease along a down-Bay
gradient, with highest levels found in
the Providence River and upper Bay.
Copper concentrations in the upper
Bay were found to exceed the EPA
water quality criteria for protecting
sensitive species. A series of cruises
in the upper Bay to examine impacts
of storm events on water quality are
scheduled for this year. The effects of
nonpoint sources such as runoff, and
combined sewer overflows (CSOs) on
the Bay will be measured to deter-
mine pollutant loadings resulting
from wet weather events.

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Development of a series of hydrody-
namic and transport models has been
funded by the Narragansett Bay
Project. These models will be linked
and used to predict fate, transport,
and effects of contaminants through-
out the Bay. Abatement alternatives
will be evaluated by running simula-
tions of various scenarios with the
models to determine the most effec-
tive actions to recommend for
implementation.
Levels of toxics have also been
measured in both quahogs and
winter flounder, and are currently
being measured in sediments as part
of an intensive survey of Narra-
gansett Bay sediments being per-
formed by University of Rhode Island
scientists. In addition, historical
trends in water and sediment quality
in the Bay are being evaluated.
Concentrations of toxics in the water,
sediment, and organisms, and
sources of the pollutants will be
examined to determine the extent,
causes, and possible solutions to toxic
contamination of the Bay.
Health and Abundance
of Living Marine
Resources
In the last several decades, the living
marine resources of Narragansett Bay
have changed dramatically. While
hard clam populations have begun to
rebound in areas closed to shellfish-
ing, scallops and soft clam popula-
tions have declined throughout the
Bay. In addition, benthic populations
in the Upper Bay have become
dominated by opportunistic species,
and the dominant fish species have
declined and display an increased
incidence of disease along a down-
Bay gradient which may be related to
pollution. Phytoplankton abundance,
species composition, and seasonal
dynamics have deviated from the 5-
year cycle they followed since 1959
such that diatom abundances now
have declined in winter and in-
creased in summer. The Project is
currently investigating whether
observed fluctuations in indigenous
marine species are attributable to
natural biological or geophysical
cycles, climatic changes, or human-
induced changes such as pollutant
loadings, overfishing, or habitat
destruction. Most of the projects
discussed under management of
fisheries also address this priority
problem.
Health Risk to
Consumers of
Contaminated Seafood
The concentrations of human patho-
genic bacteria and viruses in the
waters of Narragansett Bay are of
concern because shellfish can accu-
mulate bacteria and viruses, present-
ing a risk of diseases ranging from
mild cases of gastroenteritis to
hepatitis. Systematic records of the
incidence of diseases related to the
consumption of the contaminated
seafood have never been kept in
Rhode Island, but recent illnesses in
neighboring States, which have been
linked to the consumption of Rhode
Island clams, have caused State
officials to rank this problem among
the State’s top priorities. Whether the
cause of these outbreaks is directly
related to the quality of the shellfish,
poor preparation procedures, or
illegal harvest, it casts doubt on the
quality of an important Rhode Island
economic resource and raises con-
cerns about potential public health
risks. The Project has funded several
studies to evaluate the microbial
pathogen levels in the Bay and its
living resources, as well as compari-
sons of the effectiveness of various
indicator organisms in protecting
human health.
An additional concern is the risk to
human consumers of seafood con-
taminated with toxic chemicals.
Contamination of seafood has
recently received widespread public
and media attention and has been an
important issue for the Narragansett
Bay Project. The Project has funded
development of a methodology for
assessing the risk of human con-
sumption of seafood harvested in
Rhode Island. A preliminary applica-
tion of this methodology indicates
that hea y metal concentrations in
quahogs from open shelifishing areas
poses no threat to human health.
Further risk assessment analyses for
organic chemicals are being con-
ducted this year.
Land Use
The impact of land use practices that
affect Bay shorelines and water
quality, especially shoreline develop-
ment, is an important issue for Rhode
Island. Development along the shore
and within the Bay basin has in-
creased substantially, with accompa-
nying increases in runoff and loading
which impact water quality. An
additional result has been a reduction
in the aesthetic value of and public
access to the Bay.
The Project is initiating an intensive
effort this year to evaluate the effects
of current land use practices in Rhode
Island. A complete set of aerial
photos of Rhode Island will be
analyzed to evaluate current land use
in the State. Three cities with differ-
ent land use development patterns
will be chosen as case studies. Land
use patterns over a fifty year period
will be evaluated and an attempt will
be made to link land use to changes
in water quality. This project will be
a cooperative effort between the

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Narragansett Bay Project, the Depart-
ment of Environmental Management,
the Office of Statewide Planning, and
the Coastal Resources Planning
Council. Results will then be used to
develop recommendations for
controlling harmful land use prac-
tices such as model zoning ordi-
nances. The Project plans on estab-
lishing a mechanism for working
with local governments to assist them
in developing protective land use
strategies.
The Project is also funding a study of
nonpoint source governance in
Rhode Island. This effort is being
coordinated with the nonpoint source
assessment and management plan
being developed by the Office of
Environmental Coordination as
required by the Water Quality Act of
1987.
Recreational Uses
Narragansett Bay is used extensively
for recreational purposes including
fishing, boating, and swimming.
Limitation of these uses due to poor
water quality is a problem, especially
in the upper Bay. Improvement in
water quality could allow expansion
of recreational activities into cur-
rently restricted areas. An asses.-
ment of the type and extent of
recreational uses of the upper Bay by
University of Rhode Island research-
ers is currently being funded by the
Narragansett Bay Project. This will
be used in benefit/cost evaluations of
pollution abatement alternatives.
Other issues of concern to the Project
include public access to the Bay, the
impact of marinas on water quality
Management
Recommendations
The ultimate goal of the Narragansett
Bay Project is the development of
management recommendations and
plans for their implementation — the
Comprehensive Conservation and
Management Plan. This Plan will
provide for systematic, technically
sound, region-wide protection of the
water quality and marine resources of
Narragansett Bay. The Plan will
include recommendations for control
of point and nonpoint pollution
sources, better resource management,
and long-term monitoring to assess
the success of actions taken.
In addition to program commitments
at the State and Federal levels, much
of the implementation activity in
Narragansett Bay will involve local
action and commitment. The Public
Education Committee of the Narra-
gansett Bay Project is involved in
efforts to publicize the activities and
findings of the Project and to de-
velop support by citizens, user
groups, and political leaders for
implementation recommendations.
The Committee is also planning a
series of governance workshops to
educate the public on who in govern-
ment makes decisions affecting Bay
management and how to contact
those people.
There is much to be done to develop
a Comprehensive Conservation and
Management Plan by December of
1990, but the Narragansett Bay
Project is well on its way!
i in’ i’4arraganserr ay rrojecr tflflflKS ivir. parry
Kaplan. Director of the Light Works Ga!leri,’,
Wickford, Rhode Island, for the donation of all
photography uiied in this report.
and dredging of marinas.

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