NATIONAL OFFICE
2020 N. 14th Street
Suite 210
Arlington, VA 22201
Phone: (703) 524-0248
Fax: (703) 524-0287
WEST COAST OFFICE:
600 1st Avenue, Suite 536
Seattle, WA 98104
Phone: (206) 624-9100
Main Menu : RAE Highlights : Highlights November 2008 Newsletter :
More than 60 Volunteers Participate at the Fields Point Restoration Project
On Saturday, October 11th, 2008, a beautiful fall day, Save The Bay - Narragansett Bay hosted a buffer planting to kick-off Restore America's Estuaries' 4th National Conference on Coastal and Habitat Restoration in Providence, RI.
The event at the Fields Point saw more than 60 volunteers, of whom some were conference participants from around the country, and others were very enthusiastic Dominion Energy staff from Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. Thanks to the bright and sunny day, armed with plants, buckets and shovels, adults and kids alike were more than delighted to take to the buffer field.
Fields Point in upper Narragansett Bay was once open water and salt marsh. The site has since been filled and has been used as a liberty ship-building complex, a drive-in theater, and a municipal landfill. The Restoration Project is part of a larger effort by Save The Bay and Johnson & Wales University to turn this abandoned brownfield into playing fields, walking paths, as well as Save The Bay's new headquarters.
Save The Bay's office, a green building, now sits on what was formally an island until the entire island and surrounding shoreline were filled with municipal waste and debris. Save The Bay wanted not only the building, but the whole site to be an example of environmentally responsible design. The buffer serves as a demonstration to coastal homeowners of how beautiful and functional a buffer of native vegetation can be.
During the restoration event, more than 450 plants were planted in the buffer including shrubs like bayberry, sweet fern, meadowsweet, and black chokeberry, and trees like red maples and oaks. The event lasted for about four hours and included refreshments and a brief speaking program by RAE, Save The Bay, and Dominion Energy at the closing of the event, where all donors were acknowledged.
Save The Bays' future plans for the salt marsh include controlling invasive species and expanding work with local high schools on a salt marsh nursery project, where students will participate in every step of the process including seed collection, plant growth documentation, and planting.
Prior to the restoration event, the volunteers also had an opportunity to explore the 300 ft. deep rock pump station built as part of the first phase of the Narragansett Bay Commission's Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) project.
-----------------------------------------------------
We would like to acknowledge and thank Dominion, as our lead sponsor of the Conference's restoration project in Narragansett Bay. We are also very appreciative of the contributing support to this project from the following companies: SeaWorld Busch Gardens Conservation Fund, RPM Ecosystems, Pinelands Nursery and Supply, Anheuser-Busch Companies, Spring Valley Natural Spring Water, Whole Foods Market, NOAA Fisheries Restoration Center, and USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service.