Bill to create national park unit in Blackstone River Valley clears House committee

A PADDLER on the Blackstone River canal in a 2011 photo. Efforts to create a new national park in the Blackstone River Valley moved forward after the House Committee on Natural Resources advanced the Blackstone River Valley National Historical Park Establishment Act late last week. / FILE PHOTO COURTESY CHERYL THOMPSON
A PADDLER on the Blackstone River canal in a 2011 photo. Efforts to create a new national park in the Blackstone River Valley moved forward after the House Committee on Natural Resources advanced the Blackstone River Valley National Historical Park Establishment Act late last week. / FILE PHOTO COURTESY CHERYL THOMPSON

WASHINGTON – Efforts to create a new national park in the Blackstone River Valley moved forward after the House Committee on Natural Resources advanced the Blackstone River Valley National Historical Park Establishment Act late last week.
U.S. Rep. David N. Cicilline, D-R.I., who introduced the legislation, said the bill will preserve and protect nationally significant resources throughout the John H. Chafee Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor, promote economic development opportunities and enhance historic and natural resources of the Blackstone Valley.
“We are one step closer to establishing a new national park in the Blackstone River Valley and I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues in both chambers to improve and advance this legislation,” Cicilline said in a press release.
“The Blackstone Valley was home to the American Industrial Revolution and I can think of no better way to protect this natural and historic treasure for future generations of Rhode Islanders and visitors to enjoy than by establishing a new national park,” he added.
Senator Jack Reed, D-R.I., has led the effort in the U.S. Senate to establish the national park. Reed’s proposal has cleared the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
The John H. Chafee Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor includes all or part of 24 communities extending from Worcester, Mass. to Providence – approximately 400,000 acres of land. The entire cooridor would not be designated as a national park due to its size.
Instead, the park would include sites and districts in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, such as the Blackstone River and its tributaries; the Blackstone Canal; the historic districts of Old Slater Mill in Pawtucket; the villages of Slatersville in North Smithfield and Ashton in Cumberland; and Whitinsville and Hopedale in Massachusetts.
Cicilline’s legislation would establish a new unit of the National Park System. That designation could bring more revenue and visitors, plus a federal commitment to protect those resources.
Back in 2011, then-U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar visited the region, expressing support for the national historic park proposal.
An 84-page report on the national park proposal, conducted by the Department of the Interior and released that year, stated, “generally, a National Park Service presence in the Blackstone River Valley and more specifically, NPS resource protection and interpretative support of the core sites and districts … would be superior to conceivable management arrangements undertaken by other entities.”

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