Protecting Rivers and Providing Predictable Water Supplies
The Hunt River near where it flows into Narragansett Bay, in East Greenwich and North Kingstown, Rhode Island.
In the drought in the summer of 2005 so much water was withdrawn from the Ipswich River in Massachusetts that the river essentially went dry, killing many fish and other aquatic plants and animals.
A healthy river ecosystem requires sufficient water flowing in streams. The Coalition for Water Security promotes water management policies that ensure protection of Rhode Island's rivers and streams.
Rhode Island is working to establish a system to ensure adequate stream flow for our rivers and streams.
- RI DEM has completed an initial analysis of withdrawal limits for Rhode Island's rivers and streams. RI DEM's Alisa Richardson presented her work at the March 27, 2009 Land & Water Summit, When is a River No Longer a River?
- RI DEM has developed water quality classifications that designate cold and warm water fisheries. These classifications provide special protections, including adequate flow, for critical cold water fisheries, river and streams. The regulations were finalized in May 2009.
Other documents and links of interest:
- "Fish need water too" by Veronica Masson (in DEM publication: Wild Rhode Island (Summer 2008))
- The RI Water Allocation Program Advisory Committee Stream Flow Subcommittee final report (2004)
- US Geologic Survey stream flow gages