Nearly six in 10 of the 66 Rhode Island beaches analyzed by Environment America were marked by one or more days of potentially unsafe bacteria levels in 2024. (Courtesy Environment America)
Steven Spielberg never made a cult-favorite thriller about the dangers of sewage-infested waters.
But the amount of fecal matter lurking in the water surpassed federal safety recommendations at least one time in 2024 at nearly six in 10 of the 66 Rhode Island beaches tested, new data shows.
Even more alarming: 25 state and local beaches exceeded federal water quality safety thresholds on 25% or more of the testing days, according to a report published on July 7 by Environment America’s Research & Policy Center.
“It’s absurd in today’s society we need to be worried about crap in the water, literally,” said Rex Wilmouth, state director for the Rhode Island chapter of the nonprofit research and advocacy firm. “Even one day is one day too many.”
Wilmouth unveiled the disturbing findings at a press conference at Oakland Beach in Warwick Friday morning. The Rhode Island Department of Health closed the city-run saltwater beach on June 24 due to high bacteria counts, though it was reopened two days later. On Thursday, two other Warwick swimming areas, at City Park and Conimicut Point beaches, were closed due to high bacteria accounts detected by the Rhode Island Department of Health.
The state health department samples and tests water at state and local saltwater beaches during the summer season each year and notifies the public if unsafe bacteria levels are detected. Swimming in contaminated water can cause gastrointestinal illnesses, respiratory disease, eye and ear infections and skin rashes, with an estimated 57 million cases of illness nationwide each year. However, a majority of the illnesses go unreported.
Environment America’s report compares state and federally reported levels of fecal contamination against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s health safety threshold, or Beach Action Value, to determine which beaches may pose health risks to swimmers, and how often.
Of the 3,187 beaches tested nationwide in 2024, 61% showed unsafe levels of contamination on at least one testing day. And one in seven of those tested were marked by dangerous levels of bacteria at least 25% of testing days.
And that’s just on days when waters were sampled — suggesting infected waterways were contaminated even more often than data suggests, Wilmouth said. Take Tiverton’s Fogland Beach, for example, which surpassed the federally recommended bacteria cap on five of seven days it was tested in 2024.
“There were a lot more days it was probably unsafe as well,” Wilmouth said.
Other repeat offenders in 2024 included Matunuck Town Beach in South Kingstown and Jamestown’s Mackerel Cove Beach, which both exceeded recommended bacteria levels on roughly two-thirds of testing days, along with Narragansett’s members-only Dune’s Club. State-run beaches were not immune either: Scarborough State Beach North showed unsafe levels of bacteria on 38% of the 24 testing days, according to the data.
Healthy coastal ecosystems play crucial roles in the U.S. economy, from supporting multibillion-dollar fisheries and tourism industries to protecting coastlines from storms.
They’re also difficult to manage, requiring specialized knowledge and technology.
That’s why the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – the federal agency best known for collecting and analyzing the data that make weather forecasts and warnings possible – leads most of the government’s work on ocean and coastal health, as well as research into the growing risks posed by climate change.
The government estimates that NOAA’s projects and services support more than one-third of the nation’s gross domestic product. Yet, this is one of the agencies that the Trump administration has targeted, with discussions of trying to privatize NOAA’s forecasting operations and disband its crucial climate change research.
As a marine environmental historian who studies relationships among scientists, fishermen and environmentalists, I have seen how NOAA’s work affects American livelihoods, coastal health and the U.S. economy.
Here are a few examples from just NOAA’s coastal work, and what it means to fishing industries and coastal states.
Warm water expands, raising sea levels, which worsens storm surge during hurricanes. It’s only one risk from warming oceans. AP Photo/Gerald Herbert
Ocean-related tourism and recreation supports more than 320,000 jobs and US$13.5 billion in goods and services in Florida.
But a swim in the ocean became much less attractive in the summer of 2023, when the water temperatures off Miami reached as high as 101 degrees Fahrenheit (37.8 Celsius).
The future of some jobs and businesses across the ocean economy have also become less secure as the ocean warms and damage from storms, sea-level rise and marine heat waves increases.
Ocean temperatures have been heating up over the past century, and hitting record highs for much of the past year, driven primarily by the rise in greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels. Scientists estimate that more than 90% of the excess heat produced by human activities has been taken up by the ocean.
That warming, hidden for years in data of interest only to oceanographers, is now having profound consequences for coastal economies around the world.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Charlestown’s former
state Representative Blake “Flip” Filippi (R) shows up at Blue Shutters Beach
for one of the Mystic Aquarium’s frequent releases of rehabilitated seals.
Except unlike most onlookers, instead of a camera, he'll have a big
club to beat the newly healed critters to death before they hit the
water.
I’m not joking.
If you follow Flip on Twitter/X, you’ll notice that he’s
been campaigning against the growing population of seals in Block Island Sound
on the grounds that they will attract great white sharks.
And before you can
say “Jaws,” there goes tourism on Block Island where, not coincidentally, the
Filippi family has large business holdings catering to said tourists.
In his own words, here is what Flip has been saying:
From Flip's Twitter/X feed
Accompanying a photo (👉) of seals gathered on a beach, he
wrote: “Lots of Block Island shark bait!”
He wrote another post using the same photo and said: “Whoa – this is the most chum I’ve seen on Block
Island!”
Accompanying a ProJo article on the growing seal population
and Mystic Aquarium’s marine animal rescue program, he really got into his hatred of seals, writing:
“Rhode Island will rue the ongoing explosion of our
seal population when Great White Sharks take up residence alongside them. Cull
the year-round seal population before it is too late.”
He wrote another post on the same ProJo article:
“Gee – let’s see if great whites take up residence
off Block Island to follow the growing seal population. How about instead we
get rid of the damn seals and not have to find out.”
He also posted a phone photo of what may be a shark fin in the water,
saying the photo was taken south of Block Island.
There is a smidgen of truth in Blake’s anti-seal rants.
There are now roughly 200-300 seals in the waters between Block Island and
Charlestown, and seals are Great Whites’ favorite food, according to scientists.
Experts say that Cape Cod is a more popular
venue for Great Whites because there are even more seals there. However, just the
mere presence of sharks doesn’t lead, ipso facto, to attacks on humans.
While shark attacks on humans DO occur – and get big headlines – they occur far less often than you might think.
Last year, there were 36 shark attacks in all US waters.
Worldwide, 69 unprovoked bites were reported plus another 22 listed as
“provoked.”
Patch cited the Atlantic Shark Institute in Wakefield saying there have been two confirmed shark fatalities in Rhode Island waters in the last 200
years. That's once a century.
The first recorded fatality was a young boy killed in Bristol Harbor
in 1816. The second occurred at Watch Hill in 1895.
The last incident listed was a possible attack on a surfer
while returning to Moonstone Beach in 2019. He reported his leg was bloody from
punctures but could not identify what caused those lacerations.
It was NOT a Great White Shark. The Institute has tagged 30 Great
Whites in Rhode Island
waters but no shark fatalities by ANY species of shark in 129 years.
And that’s it. When I said Flip had a smidgen of truth in
his rants, maybe I was being too generous since there is no scientific or
historical evidence to support his fears of a Sharknado outbreak in Rhode Island. And no reason to start
killing seals en masse unless Flip thinks that would be a tourist draw.
But perhaps Blake has another reason for ranting about
killing seals: maybe Filippi, like his former MAGA-nut colleague Justin Price,
is planning a political comeback.
One necessary step for any 2024 Republican politician is to show how in-sync their thinking is with the GOP’s Supreme Leader, convicted felon Donald Trump.
It turns out Trump is also obsessed with sharks. Yesterday, June 19, at a campaign event in Nevada, Trump went on a tear where he linked his hatred of sharks with his equally fierce hatred of electric vehicles.
He conjured the image of being in a sinking, electric-powered boat. In his own words describing his "dialogue" with a guy he was watching on TV:
"I
say, what would happen if the boat sank from its weight, and you're in the
boat, and you have this tremendously powerful battery, and the battery is now
underwater. And there's a shark that's approximately 10 yards over there…
"By
the way, lot of shark attacks lately, I watched some guys justifying it today.
'Well, they weren't really that angry. They bit off the young lady's leg
because of the fact that they were, they were not hungry, but they
misunderstood who she was. He said 'there's no problem with sharks, they just didn't
really understand a young woman's swimming. She really got decimated and other
people too, a lot of shark attacks.
So
I said [To the guy he was watching on television],
there's a shark 10 yards away from the boat, do I get electrocuted? If the boat
is sinking, water goes over the battery, the boat is sinking, do I stay on top
of the boat and get electrocuted? Or do I jump over by the shark and not get
electrocuted?
"Because
I will tell you he didn't know the answer. He said, 'you know, nobody's ever
asked me that question.' I said I think it's a good question. I think there's a
lot of electric current coming to that water. But you know what I'd do? If
there was a shark or you get electrocuted, I'll take electrocution every single
time. I'm not getting near the shark."
Got all that?
In today’s Republican Party, cruelty seems to be the point.
After all, Trump has great
plans for even crueler policies toward immigrants than we saw in his first term
when thousands of children were taken
from their parents. Trump had no plan to reunite those children with
those parents, and at the end of his term, almost a thousand were unaccounted
for.
That just one of many Trump acts of cruelty with many more
to come when he becomes “Dictator for a Day” and goes after his many enemies.
On policy matters, GOP governors work hard to show how
cruel they can be to those groups that their Orange Master dislikes.
For
example, there’s Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ new law banning mandatory water and
heat breaks for outdoor workers. Maybe Florida agri-business
sees dead farmworkers as good fertilizer for their crops.
Of course, this is only a tiny part of the list of cruelties that includes attacks on reproductive rights, women, workers, veterans, Medicare and
Social Security, domestic aid programs, help for Ukraine’s fight against
Russian aggression, vaccinations, books, the environment, civil rights,
education, the Constitution and democracy itself.
Charlestown is in the bracket for towns without curbside pickup, where trash is either brought to a transfer station or picked up by a private contractor. Compared to similar towns, Charlestown is not the worst, but is far from the best.
Nearly 12 years after the state imposed
recycling and waste diversion mandates on its cities and towns, most
municipalities still struggle to achieve them.
EDITOR'S NOTE: As early as 1986, Charlestown resisted mandatory recycling. According to a letter from Charlestown Public Works Director Alan Arsenault, Charlestown would be unable to comply because, he predicted, part-time and summer residents would not cooperate so the town should be exempt. The letter also makes the dubious claim that mandatory recycling would be bad for tourism. Read that letter HERE. - Will Collette.
The Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation (RIRRC),
the quasi-public state agency that operates the Central Landfill in Johnston,
recently released its annual report detailing
how much every city and town in the state is recycling, and how much waste they
are sending to the landfill.
Last year’s results were abysmal. Only 15 of the state’s
39 municipalities met or exceeded the 35% recycling rate mandated by a 2012 state law. Their
waste diversion rates were even worse. The same law requires municipalities to
divert at least 50% of overall waste sent to the landfill. Only two met the
minimum in 2023: North Kingstown and Portsmouth.
Chairs McEntee and DiMario’s outdoor dining bill passes
General Assembly
Legislation (2024-H 7064A, 2024-S 2028A) sponsored by Rep. Carol Hagan
McEntee and Sen. Alana M. DiMario that establishes standards for
municipalities to regulate outdoor dining was approved by the General
Assembly.
Representative McEntee, chairwoman of the House Small Business Committee, and
Senator DiMario, chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Agriculture
Committee, have introduced several new laws that allowed outdoor dining since
the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“In the dark days of the pandemic, expansion of outdoor dining across the
state proved to be a bright spot that brought our communities back together
on those warm summer nights to enjoy one of Rhode Island’s finest assets –
our culinary and hospitality community.
The
state announced the award
of $2.525 million in reimbursable grants under the Brownfields
Remediation and Economic Development Fund for
the cleanup and redevelopment of contaminated properties, known as brownfields,
across Rhode Island.
0
projects across five cities and towns will receive funding, made possible by
the voter-approved 2022
Green Bond and
from leftover monies unspent from previous grant rounds.
The
10 funded projects, eight of which are in Environmental
Justice (EJ)
focus areas, are expected to create 2,446 construction jobs and 475 permanent
jobs. The projects will unlock $522 million in additional investments and
promote smart growth by reclaiming and reusing valuable real estate.
Brownfields
occupy many acres of desirable commercial and industrial space within the
state’s urban corridors. Remediation and redevelopment of these sites not only
mitigates the threat to public health and the environment from exposure to
uncontrolled contamination, but also can create and attract jobs, help small
businesses, increase the community tax base, and revitalize streets and
neighborhoods.
“The
community cleanups and investments made possible by brownfields grants
underscore the power of the green bonds that finance them,” said DEM Director
Terry Gray.
“Green
bonds help restore our environment, support economic development, and
strengthen Rhode Island’s resiliency in the face of climate change. DEM is
grateful that Governor McKee has proposed $5 million in additional funding for
the Brownfields grant program in the 2024 Green Bond for the ballot in
November. If approved, this investment will help continue the success
we’ve achieved with our partners by investing in the cleanup of sites across
the state, which has helped build new schools, businesses, affordable housing,
and green energy projects.”
Project: Shannock
Village / Clark Mill Address:225
Shannock Village Road, Richmond Grant:
$350,000 remediation/redevelopment
Description:
Funding to continue the ongoing remediation and rehabilitation of an old mill
complex located next to the Pawcatuck River. Reuse plans include providing
public access for fishing, kayaking, and enjoying a nature trail. This phase of
the remedial work will be focused on remediating oil contamination around
Building #12, riverbank restorations, and addressing impacted soil. This
project supports an estimated 200 construction jobs and will bring 35 permanent
jobs.
