As milestones approach, new work gets started at Stillhouse Cove

Daniel Kittredge
Posted 10/2/14

Crews were busy at historic Stillhouse Cove earlier this week as a revegetation and erosion control project at the park got under way.

Meanwhile, the Edgewood Waterfront Preservation Association …

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As milestones approach, new work gets started at Stillhouse Cove

Posted

Crews were busy at historic Stillhouse Cove earlier this week as a revegetation and erosion control project at the park got under way.

Meanwhile, the Edgewood Waterfront Preservation Association (EWPA) is looking ahead to the planned installation of a new boat ramp in the spring – and, later this fall, to possible approval of the site’s placement on the National Register of Historic Places.

“It’s a big piece of community,” Barbara Rubine, president of the EWPA, said of the cove. “People get excited when they see the work going on.”

The current project has three areas of focus – restoring the park’s lawn, completing additional planting to help control erosion and installing an irrigation system.

The work is being completed through a Hurricane Sandy disaster relief grant for historic places, with the funding provided via the National Park Service and the U.S. Department of the Interior. The Rhode Island Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission is administering the grant.

Rubine said the funding – totaling roughly $32,000 – came following a “multi-tiered application process” that involved making the case for Stillhouse Cove as a qualifying historic landscape. She noted that including the irrigation system resulted in the total cost exceeding the grant award, and the city is providing assistance to cover the difference.

The park is closed during the work, which Rubine expected to take approximately 10 days, and fencing will remain in place at the curb once the revegetation process is complete.

Rubine said crews are taking a “customized approach” given that some parts of the park require a more careful approach due to erosion concerns. A portion of the work will involve hydroseeding, while turf will be used in other areas.

Rubine said consideration was given to splitting the project into separate phases in order to allow at least partial access continuously, but the decision was made to move forward with all of the planned work.

“The time to do that is now,” she said. “It really is going to require some patience.”

Stillhouse Cove is Cranston’s only salt marsh and one of the last remaining in upper Narragansett Bay. In addition to its status as a recreational resource, the site holds significance in the nation’s history as the landing place for Americans following the burning of the Gaspee in 1772.

Next year’s Gaspee Days celebration will be the 50th, and June 2015 will mark 100 years since the park at Stillhouse Cove was created by the Metropolitan Park Commission.

Both of those upcoming milestones make the timing perfect for the boat ramp’s installation, which Rubine called a “finishing touch” to recent improvement and restoration work, something for which the EWPA “worked long and hard” – and, hopefully, the national historic designation.

The boat ramp is being funded through a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service grant, with a 25-percent match from the city. That funding is in place, and the project is currently in the engineering stage with plans for installation to occur in April.

Rubine said the state recently approved the request to place the cove on the National Historic Register, and that recommendation has been forwarded on to the National Park Service. It is hoped a final decision will be made later this fall.

The EWPA’s Oct. 21 meeting at the William Hall Library will include a presentation from the consultant who has worked on the National Historic Register project. The meeting begins at 7 p.m., and members of the public are welcome to attend.

More information regarding the EWPA can be found on its website, www.stillhousecove.org, or on its Facebook page.

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  • Wuggly

    As a Cranston resident that doesn't live a reasonable walkable distance from the park, I look at this as using tax money for a neighborhood only boat ramp. Spots should be allocated for boat trailers, instead we have them specifically prohibited.

    Monday, October 6, 2014 Report this