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| The University of Rhode Island is removing about 15 acres of farmland in the Flagg Road/Plains Road area to build a parking lot and new road. (Frank Carini/ecoRI News) |
By FRANK CARINI/ecoRI.org News staff
KINGSTON — Rhode
Island’s diminishing quantity of farmland recently took another hit — some
would even call the loss a decisive blow.
Construction on the
University of Rhode Island campus, at Flagg Road and Plains Road, has forever
removed a significant portion of agricultural land from the state’s supply. The
building of a 330-vehicle parking lot and a new road began about a month before
Rhode Island voters are asked to approve $20 million in bond money (Question
6on the Nov. 6 state
ballot) for Narragansett Bay restoration, open space protection, state park
improvements and, yes, farmland preservation.
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Piles of high-quality agricultural soil are
being
removed from the construction site.
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This ironic twist
wasn’t lost on Michael Sullivan, a professor of agronomy at the URI College of
the Environment and Life Sciences. “This is an exceptionally poor example of
environmental advocacy,” the former director of the state Department of
Environmental Management said. “The state will soon be asking voters to fund
$4.5 million for farmland preservation while a land-grant university is paving
over 15 acres.”
URI, once known as the
State Agricultural School, was established as a land-grant institution (pdf) in the late 1880s. The Morrill
Acts of 1862 and 1890 funded educational institutions by granting federally
controlled land to states for them to develop or sell to raise money to
establish and endow land-grant universities.
Digging up
agricultural land to make way for more development, especially in a state that
has lost 80 percent of its farmland since 1945 — only about 40,000 acres remain
in production today — and is actively seeking to increase the amount of food it
grows, has rubbed many, including Sullivan, the wrong way.
“We’re not just taking
about some of the best topsoil in the region; we’re talking about some of the
finest soil in the eastern United States,” Sullivan said. “The idea that we
needed to ruin this land is fundamentally appalling. Where is the sound
thinking? The change in hydrology isn’t reversible. The change we’re making to
the land isn’t reversible.”
Sullivan blamed the
university for relying heavily on short-term fiscal analysis rather than on
sound environmental management.
This parking lot
project was originally part of the 2000
University of Rhode Island Kingston Campus Master Plan, which called for "a seamless connection
between Flagg Road and Plains Road.” Flagg Road already had been extended to
add commuter parking, and the master plan recommended extending Flagg Road
further south to meet Plains Road.
Some of the
high-quality topsoil being removed from the Flagg Road and Plains Road
construction area is being stored at URI’s Peckham Farm, according to Robert
Weygand, the university’s vice president for administration and finance. The
rest, he said, was being taken by the project’s contractor, the Narragansett
Improvement Co., as part of the contract it signed with the university.
Weygand said the work
was needed because of the lack of on-campus faculty, staff and student parking.
He also took issue with the construction project being compared to ballot
Question 6.
“The bond issue is
different than what is happening here,” Weygand said. “The bond question is
about private property.”
Weygand said the
ongoing work includes a range of environmental improvements. He noted that the
parking lot surface will be porous and feature a subsurface of crushed stone to
better filter runoff. He said the project was incorporating drainage
improvements, and making use of rain gardens and stormwater management
bioswales. He also noted that the work would improve drainage from the turf
fields to the north, which will reduce runoff into White Horn Brook.
Project detractors,
however, aren’t impressed. They point to the 40 or so trees that were cut down,
including a stand of white pine, and made into a small mountain of woodchips.
They note the work of a few-years-old climate change study is gone, because the
trees involved in the research project were dug up and removed. Other more
established research plots were plowed over and will be moved further north on
Flagg Road to land that was once leased to turf farmers.
These concerned
people, many of whom are URI affiliated (few would speak with ecoRI News on the
record), are angry that little notification or information was provided about
the project before work began. They are upset that no real public hearing
process was held, and note that some considerations, such as a parking garage,
would have reduced the project’s footprint.
They are particularly
worried that this work adds to the state’s growing amount of impervious
surface. About 12 percent of Rhode Island is currently covered by asphalt,
cement and roofing.
The new home to a URI
parking lot and road is in the Wood-Pawcatuck watershed, and houses a
sole-source aquifer, which Sullivan called the finest drinking water aquifer in
the state. The land also is part of the well-protection area for recharge of
the drinking water wells for the university and the village of Kingston.
“This entire project is inconsistent with the
environmental advocacy that the university purports to be important,” Sullivan
said. “We’re bulldozing as fast as we can, and giving away quality topsoil —
all to build a high-speed curved road.”
