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October 1, 2007

Distinguished crew takes part in Bay cleanup

Journal photo / Steve Szydlowski
A crane did the heavy lifting today, as a distinguished crew watched during an event that also recognized the special efforts of two civilian sea captains.

BRISTOL -- A military landing craft butted ashore just south of Colt State Park this morning and what must be the most distinguished cleanup crew in state history jumped out and picked up plastic bottles, crumbled flotation material, and various boards and pilings.

U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, Governor Carcieri and Timothy R.E. Keeney, a deputy assistant secretary in the federal government’s oceans agency, all grabbed handfuls of refuse and threw them into a garbage container inside the 56-foot landing craft.

Then they all stood back as a crane on the landing craft pulled a beached, 20-foot section of floating dock off the shore, lifted it high in the air, and dropped it onto the garbage container.

That’s how state and federal officials celebrated renewed federal funding for the unusual public-private program that has been performing an unprecedented cleanup of Narragansett Bay with minimal staff and zero bureaucracy.

First, of course, there were the usual speeches under a tent at the water’s edge in Colt State Park.

But all focused on the two civilian sea captains, Ed Hughes and Alan Wentworth. They created Project Clean Sweep and pushed, prodded and cajoled to get state support and federal funding to use their unusual boat and all the volunteers they could round up to remove the discarded boats, bollards, piers, tires and other refuse that line the Bay’s shoreline.

Last year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration gave the two $150,000 and they used it to remove 1,100 tons of refuse. They worked under the supervision of the state Department of Environmental Management, with permits from the state’s Coastal Resources Management Council and lots of help from other local and state agencies. The state’s Resource Recovery Corp. lets them discard the refuse for no charge at the state’s Central Landfill.

Today’s gathering was prompted by a new NOAA award of $170,000 -- the second highest such grant awarded to a single state.

-- Journal environment writer Peter B. Lord

Posted by Mike McKinney  at 4:34 PM | Permalink

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