A Retrospective of the SNEP Network’s Impact on Rhode Island

Before taking on the role as Rhode Island Liaison for the SNEP Network, my work with RIDEM’s Office of Water Resources had provided me with detailed knowledge of the significant challenges to protecting and restoring Rhode Island’s surface waters, and to managing stormwater and the impacts of polluted runoff.   Not only had stormwater been identified as the largest “uncontrolled” source of nutrient and bacteria pollution to the state’s surface waters, but communities were dealing with periodic street and riverine flooding.  With twenty-nine of the state’s thirty-six municipalities subject to the general stormwater permit (MS4 permits) issued by RIDEM in 2003, communities had begun to improve their stormwater management practices but many struggled to meet the permit’s minimum requirements or to install practices to reduce stormwater pollution.  

Chronic underfunding of stormwater management is a common theme across Rhode Island.  As a result, little is known about the age and condition of most stormwater systems, and capital funding needs are not well understood. Responsibilities and costs to operate and maintain systems are typically spread over multiple municipal departments, and typically insufficiently funded to do more than basic maintenance of drainage systems.  Sporadic (one-off) efforts by municipalities to develop stormwater management plans and/or to implement stormwater retrofits were and are generally grant funded.  No community has yet approved of a stormwater utility/enterprise fund, though feasibility studies for eleven Rhode Island municipalities have demonstrated the benefit of sustainable funding  to plan, manage and fund routine maintenance and stormwater improvement projects. 

Compounding these impacts attributed to decades of underfunding of stormwater management, communities across the state have experienced with alarming frequency and intensity the effects of climate change.  The observed changes in precipitation patterns, sea level rise and storm surges have exacerbated flooding and water quality issues and revealed new areas of  vulnerability.  The state’s first Comprehensive Climate Preparedness Strategy prepared by the Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank in 2017 laid out a path forward to begin resiliency planning.  Beginning in 2019, the first cohort of five municipalities participated in the Bank’s Municipal Resilience Program to identify climate resilience needs in their communities. This evolving program along with state bond fund resiliency grants has laid a foundation for climate resiliency planning in Rhode Island.   

The Southeast New England Program Network in Rhode Island 

It is in this context that the US EPA entered into a five-year cooperative agreement with the New England Environmental Finance Center (NEEFC) in October 2019 to create a technical assistance network for Southeast New England which encompasses all of Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts. The team of locally known and trusted partners included Save The Bay, Audubon Society of Rhode Island, Massachusetts Audubon Society, the RI and MA offices of The Nature Conservancy, University of Rhode Island’s Nonpoint Source Education for Municipal Officials, University of New Hampshire’s Stormwater Center, Elizabeth Scott Consulting, Kimberly Groff Consulting, and Throwe Environmental.  To augment these providers’ expertise and capacity, the Network also established a pre-vetted Consultant Pool to streamline the delivery of consultant services to communities.   The Network’s work plan included pilot projects to restore the Maidford River in Middletown, RI and advance climate resiliency planning in the Canoe River Watershed in southeastern Massachusetts, and free training and technical assistance  to municipalities, Tribes and organizations across southeastern New England. To address gaps, the Network undertook the development of regional guidance and tools to advance community stormwater management and planning practices.  The Network also created an ‘On-Line Portal to Request Technical Assistance and Training Services’ to provide communities with ongoing access to Network services. The Network’s MA & RI Liaisons responded to these requests, bringing in other Network partners as needed and available.  

Community Assistance and Training in the Time of Covid

Shortly after the SNEP Network was formed, COVID-19 emerged as a global pandemic, and emergency closures, community lockdowns and travel restrictions became the norm. The Network held one in-person funding workshop in February 2020 but all subsequent in-person meetings and workshops had to be re-organized as virtual meetings. Over the next three years, the Network demonstrated its ability to pivot in response to changing conditions to deliver its ambitious suite of community assistance projects and to embark upon virtual training webinars that covered a host of relevant topics. 

Maidford River Pilot Project

Initiated within a month of the Network’s formation, the Maidford River Restoration Project set out to address flooding and water quality concerns associated with the highly altered Maidford River, a tributary to Aquidneck Island’s water supply reservoirs located entirely within the Town of Middletown.  Chief among concerns to be addressed were road closures on Berkeley Avenue caused by riverine flooding which prevented ingress and egress for area residents and the diversion of emergency vehicles leaving from Middletown’s Fire Station on Wyatt Avenue.  During the first year of the project, Network partners (Save the Bay and Elizabeth Scott Consulting) worked with with the Town of Middletown and Aquidneck Land Trust to articulate the project’s objectives, identify property owners that were willing to participate in the project and to develop a scope of work for consultant services to undertake hydrologic and hydraulic analyses of alternative floodplain restoration scenarios to evaluate flood mitigation and water quality and habitat improvement benefits.  

In the second year,  the project team expanded to include the Eastern RI Conservation District.  The team presented the alternatives analysis to property owners within the project area and successfully gained their consensus to advance the design of the selected river and floodplain restoration alternative. More detailed hydrologic and hydraulic analyses were completed to support development of 30% design plans for the river and floodplain restoration project.  Ultimately the project team recommended the realignment of the river away from Berkeley Avenue, the addition of meanders, the excavation of upland areas to re-create and connect the river to its floodplain,  the replacement of two culverts to allow higher flood flows to pass, the addition of a berm on one property to prevent flooding of houses and lastly, the raising of Berkeley Avenue. Flood inundation mapping documented that the proposed river and floodplain restoration project would indeed reduce flooding of Berkeley Avenue (and the need for road closures) as well as reduce the geographical extent of flooding into lawns and fields.  

Following a step-by-step process to garner property owners’ approval at each milestone, the project team presented the property owners with the 30% design site plans and asked for their approval to proceed to the next stage of advancing to full design and permitting (for which the Town had received grant funds to proceed).  Due to a key property owner’s concerns, the project has been put on hold indefinitely.  With concerns over continued flooding of Berkeley Avenue, the Town opted to apply for Natural Resources Conservation Service PL-566  funding (and up to 90% federal funding) from NRCS to evaluate other alternatives. An  agreement between the Town and NRCS was signed in Spring 2024.   

The Maidford River Pilot Project exemplifies not only the technical but also stakeholder challenges to restoring watersheds and building climate resilience across the region. To optimize the lessons learned from the Maidford River Restoration Project, the Network created a Case Study and has also provided detailed documentation of the project’s approach and technical deliverables on the Network’s website.  Also included on the website is a Storyboard explaining  in non-technical terms, the challenges and proposed solutions for the Maidford River:https://snepnetwork.org/maidford/.  

Community Assistance Projects

The Network’s approach to equitably offer community-based services was to announce a “Call for Participants” whereby communities (municipalities, Tribes, and organizations) could request assistance to address their specific needs. The applications were intentionally made simple to ensure that even communities with little to no staff would be able to request assistance. Beginning in the Spring of 2020 and repeated annually through 2024, the Network offered a Call for Participants resulting in technical assistance services to 13 RI communities and completion of 18 projects.   In all cases, the scope of technical assistance was developed jointly with community leaders to ensure that the Network’s services were tailored to the community’s needs – with most projects completed within a year of its start.  Projects ranged from assistance with stormwater management planning related to low impact development strategies and stormwater solutions to mitigate existing problems and sustainable financing,  to climate resiliency planning and capacity building.   Feedback from one community about the Community Assistance Projects is that “the SNEP grant is a great way for the SNEP Network to look at what your technical challenge is, and then look within their base of expertise. So I think they should keep doing those SNEP CAP grants, and get them out there twice a year.” Brief descriptions are available on the SNEP Network website: https://snepnetwork.org/community-assistance-projects/. 

Among the more innovative projects was assistance to Providence in developing a “how-to” guide for non-proprietary street tree filters as a low cost stormwater solution that also helps to mitigate the extreme heat experienced in many urban especially low income neighborhoods lacking street trees. The guide serves as a resource for the City as it implements its ‘PVD Tree Plan’, an equity-based effort to ensure that all areas of the city receive the environmental and social benefits of tree canopy, completed with SNEP Network support in Fall 2023. The Street Tree Filter Guide is one of many tools developed by the SNEP Network described in more detail below. 

Other innovative projects included work with the Town of South Kingstown to develop a riparian restoration planting plan for Indian Run Brook as it flows through the Peacedale Village Green and to assist with design and engineering of retrofits to the Neighborhood Guild parking lot (located on the river’s left bank) to reduce pavement width and treat runoff before being discharged to the river.  The Town has submitted a grant application to fund this stormwater retrofit and riparian buffer restoration project with implementation proposed for 2025.  

Highlights of the Network’s other work with Rhode Island communities are provided below. These projects, organized topically, exemplify the Network’s approach to meet communities where they’re at, encourage inclusive decision making and provide actionable solutions. 

Stormwater Management Planning

To help communities with more proactive stormwater management, SNEP Network partner, URI Nonpoint Source Education for Municipal Officials program (URI-NEMO), has been working with Rhode Island communities to assist them in reviewing their local ordinances utilizing the Low Impact Development (LID) checklist to ensure that new development does not worsen flooding and/or water quality concerns and that re-development incorporates improvements to reduce stormwater impacts. These assessments identify strengths and weaknesses of existing ordinances with recommendations for changes to incorporate LID designs and enhance stormwater management, and have been completed for all seven RI municipalities (Charlestown, Exeter, Hopkinton, North Kingstown, Richmond, South Kingstown,  and Westerly) in the Wood Pawcatuck watershed.  The Town of Westerly is in the process of reviewing proposed updates to their ordinances to address identified shortfalls, with additional assistance being provided from the Wood-Pawcatuck Stewardship Council.  

In Charlestown, URI-NEMO joined with GrowSmart RI, a SNEP Network consultant pool provider to assist the Town in developing a conservation development ordinance ensuring that new subdivisions incorporate Low Impact Development designs and enhanced stormwater management.  With close attention to the nuances of the ordinance’s language and multiple rounds of public workshops, Charlestown’s Town Council went on to adopt the updated zoning and subdivision ordinances in 2022.  And more recently, the Town of Tiverton has also adopted a Conservation Development ordinance with assistance from URI-NEMO. 

Demonstrating SNEP Network’s ability to nimbly respond to needs as they emerge, funding was made available to URI-NEMO to augment their work underway with the RI Division of Statewide Planning to develop training on stormwater.  The training is a component of the mandatory training requirement for municipal board members that was enacted by the RI General Assembly in 2022 (R.I. General Law 45-70-3, Land Use Law and Planning) and includes a component that requires Planning Boards to take two hours of training. The supplemental funding provided by SNEP Network has enabled URI-NEMO to hire a videographer to capture “stormwater stories” of planning board members. Those stories will be added to the training to make the more traditional learning content engaging, accessible, and relevant.

The Network has also provided technical assistance and consultant services to both Warren and Bristol to develop plans to address specific stormwater concerns in areas of their towns.  The focus of the Network’s assistance for the Town of Bristol was on development of stormwater management and landscape improvement master plan for the Bristol Town Common.  The Bristol Town Commons Master Plan prepared with technical support from SNEP Network consultant pool contractor, Fuss & O’Neill has allowed the Town to make informed decisions regarding use of  this culturally and historically important town park as an event space as well as future improvements to limit runoff from untreated surfaces that discharge to street drains and into nearby Bristol Harbor.  With the award of  a $84,650 Section 319 grant, the Town will begin implementing the plan’s recommendations by making stormwater improvements in the north parking lot at State Street. 

Facilitated Stormwater Planning Series for Communities

A recurring theme of technical assistance requests received by the SNEP Network has been to help with addressing water quality and/or flooding problems. In response to this need, the SNEP Network developed the Stormwater Planning Series in 2021 with the idea of empowering communities to achieve healthy watersheds and long term climate resilience by enhancing their capacity to improve stormwater management. Through a series of five sessions, participating community members (town officials, local board members and/or NGOs) are familiarized with readily available tools and  techniques to identify low-cost stormwater solutions. Along the way, participants learn from other communities’ experiences and build consensus among community leaders on approaches that “work” for them. With one-on-one technical assistance from a SNEP Network partner, participants develop conceptual designs for stormwater treatment practices that align with their communities’ character and maintenance capacity – with the idea that it can be replicated in other areas of their town/city.

To date, the Network has offered the Stormwater Planning Series to seven RI municipalities, five MA municipalities, and one Tribe over three consecutive years.  Rhode Island communities participating in the training include Providence, Warren, North Kingstown, South Kingstown, Westerly, Coventry, and Hopkinton. In each case, communities have developed conceptual designs and cost estimates for stormwater treatment that allow them to seek grants and/or other funding to advance designs to implementation.  Among the most successful is the Town of Westerly.  With assistance from Southern RI Conservation District, the Town has successfully applied for and received multiple state and federal grants to plan for and implement improvements along the Main Street corridor known as Westerly Resilient Waterfront Renewal Project, including advancing the design concept developed as part of the Network’s Stormwater Series to final design and engineering.  Construction is planned for 2024.  At least four other Rhode Island communities have submitted grant applications to advance their stormwater improvement projects.  

Stormwater Financing Solutions 

Again demonstrating its ability to nimbly respond to emerging issues and needs, the Network responded to a request from the City of Providence in the Summer of 2023 to assist with identifying sustainable financing to support operation and maintenance of city-owned sewer and stormwater collection system, and to support a companion public engagement process. The Network  assisted  with development of the scope of work for consultant services and is now supporting the work of consultants  (hired by the City and NEEFC’s New England Water Infrastructure Network) to assess the sewer system and to recommend alternative funding and financing options.  The Network’s support of the public engagement process includes facilitation services by Narragansett Bay National Estuary Research Reserve (NBNERR) in meetings with the City’s Stormwater and Sewer Task Force formed by Providence Mayor Smiley to solicit community input on sustainable funding/financing options. A particular focus of the City’s engagement process is on ensuring that the City’s disadvantaged communities are equitably represented in the identification of needed infrastructure improvements and investments, and in financing options selected. This work is ongoing. More details are available here:  https://climatereadypvd.providenceri.gov/stormwater/.

Climate Resilience Planning 

Building on the Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank’s Municipal Resilience Program (MRP), the SNEP Network worked with the three Aquidneck Island  communities to advance their climate resilience planning efforts by assisting them with development of a Climate Resilience Planning and Financing Strategy.  Beginning with the Town of Portsmouth in 2020-2021, the SNEP Network led by Throwe Environmental provided a framework for town officials and community stakeholders to inventory and rank hazards, and identify and prioritize Town assets at risk due to climate change. This groundwork led to a prioritized list of capital improvements and actionable programmatic initiatives to advance Portsmouth’s resilience to climate change impacts.   The Town was also awarded consultant services provided by Pare Engineering, to provide Order of Magnitude Cost Estimates for their highest priority capital and programmatic projects.  With consensus on their path forward, the Town has gone on to implement their highest priority projects utilizing $360K of APRA funds to implement drainage improvements in Portsmouth Park and Island Park, and  a $140K MRP grant to implement drainage improvements at Riverside. 

In 2021, the Network provided assistance to the City of Newport to advance their climate resilience planning efforts.  Working with City officials and community stakeholders, the Network partners provided a framework to gain consensus on the City’s highest priority climate resilience needs, and to develop a Climate Resilience Planning and Financing Strategy setting forth a path to implementation. 

Lastly, in the Spring of 2022, the Network assisted the Town of Middletown in developing a Climate Resilience Planning and Financing Strategy. This work combined with consultant services from Fuss & O’Neill resulted in the development of Order of Magnitude Cost Estimates for their highest priority capital projects.  The Town received a $69,400 MRP grant to advance one of the highest priority projects, flood proofing the Paradise Valley sewer pump station. 

 Leadership Exchange

A key lesson learned from the COVID pandemic is that a community is only as strong as its most vulnerable populations and assets. Building on this concept in March 2020, SNEP Network partner, Throwe Environmental launched the Leadership Exchange as an innovative new technical assistance program that paired communities in the region with leaders throughout the country. Through a series of conversations, municipalities discussed the challenges they face from all directions: social, economic, and environmental. The SNEP Network held three leadership exchanges with the Town of Wareham, MA, the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head Aquinnah, and the Aquidneck Island communities of Portsmouth, Newport and Middletown, RI.  Each Leadership Exchange was tailored to the unique challenges facing the community but, in all cases, identified solutions that advance their climate resiliency as well as providing an array of co-benefits related to public health, recreation, cost-effectiveness, and economic growth. Components of the leadership exchange were tailored to each community and included workshops, community assessments, podcasts, and/or webinars available here: https://snepnetwork.org/network-resources/.

Building on the resilience planning initiatives with each of the island’s municipalities, the Aquidneck Island Leadership Exchange brought together island leaders and content experts over the course of three (topically organized) workshops in the Spring of 2023 to facilitate discussions for advancing on-the ground, climate resilient infrastructure projects within each municipality and regionally across the island in the areas of Stormwater and Water Resources, Transportation, and Emergency Management and Preparedness. Working with the Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank’s Aquidneck Island Resiliency Coordinator, the SNEP Network team brought added capacity to coordinate strategic planning and implementation including identification of funding and financing opportunities best suited for identified projects of island wide significance. With the momentum from these inclusive conversations and ongoing assistance from the Aquidneck Island Climate Resilience Coordinator, the communities went on to apply for and were invited to submit a full application for a NOAA Climate Resilience Regional Challenge Grant in February 2024 to enable ongoing regional resilience coordination on Aquidneck Island. They are awaiting news on whether they will be awarded the grant. 

 Organizational Capacity Building

The Network has provided critical support to the newly created Blackstone Watershed Collaborative, a network of communities and organizations working to improve the health and resilience of watershed communities and their ability to meet the increasing challenges to water quality from status quo urban development and climate change impacts.  BWC staff provide much needed capacity to assist communities on both sides of the RI/MA border with stormwater management and watershed protection efforts.  BWC has brought cohesion  to watershed-wide resilience projects and otherwise worked to implement recommended priority actions identified in the Blackstone Needs Assessment completed by the Narragansett Bay Estuary Program in 2021. 

Regional Tools

As seasoned practitioners in the southeastern New England region, Network partners identified common  gaps in guidance and/or tools that would help the region’s communities with advancing their stormwater management and climate resilience practices.  The Network worked with partners and consultants selected from the pre-qualified Consultant Pool to develop tools including the New England Stormwater Retrofit Manual (https://snepnetwork.org/stormwater-retrofit-manual/), the Low Impact Development (LID) By-lay review tool, the Non-Proprietary Tree Filter (https://www.stormwaterinnovation.org/surface-tree-trench-options-guide), the Buffer Restoration Guide (https://bufferrestorationguide.org/),  and the Planning to Action Climate toolkit (PACT) (https://throwe-environmental.com/toolkit). Once developed, SNEP Network partners delivered training on use of these tools and/or guidance materials and made them available on the SNEP Network’s website (https://snepnetwork.org/snep-network-tools-and-resources/#).  In many cases, these tools were also utilized in direct technical assistance projects with our communities.   

Impact of the Southeast New England Program Network in Rhode Island and the Region

Since its inception in October 2019, the SNEP Network has effectively collaborated across federal, state, local levels to complement existing services and fill gaps.  The Network has delivered technical assistance and training, meeting communities where they are at, to advance their “state of practice” and build capacity to manage stormwater and build climate resilience.  Rhode Island communities now have access to guidance, recorded training materials and other on-line tools utilizing state-of-art techniques to manage existing stormwater impacts and prevent new ones from developing.   Communities who have received direct technical assistance and/or participated in training sessions have discrete actionable plans and projects which, as described above, many are advancing towards implementation.  A brief description of the Community Assistance Projects completed in Rhode Island can be found here https://snepnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/SNEP-Network-Rhode-Island-CAP-Projects-2020-2024.pdf. A brief description of the Community Assistance Projects completed in Massachusetts can be found here https://snepnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/SNEP-Network-MA-CAP-Table-2020-2024-Final-3.pdf By the numbers, SNEP Network has brought together 16 regional technical assistance providers, 15 Federal and State entities, and 14 consultants to support over 77 municipalities, Tribes and community organizations in the SNEP region (MA and RI) with training (via webinar participation and in person sessions) and technical assistance to advance projects and implement climate solutions.   The future is indeed brighter for communities across southeast New England thanks to the SNEP Network’s accomplishments in helping them to achieve their goals of healthier and more resilient communities.