Blackstone assets seen gaining from park status

COURTESY CHERYL THOMPSONRIVER RUNS THROUGH IT: A paddler on the Blackstone River canal approaches the Ashton Viaduct between Lincoln and Cumberland.
COURTESY CHERYL THOMPSON RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT: A paddler on the Blackstone River canal approaches the Ashton Viaduct between Lincoln and Cumberland.

To many, the federal heritage corridor in the Blackstone Valley represents a window into the United States’ past, starting with Colonial times and moving into and through the Industrial Revolution. But it is also a gateway to the marvels of southern New England’s natural world. And thanks to recent actions by the U.S. Department of the Interior, it looks like both aspects of the corridor are likely to be preserved well into the future.
Created by federal law in 1986, the John H. Chafee Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor consists of 24 communities – 13 in Massachusetts and 11 in Rhode Island – along the 46-mile Blackstone River from Worcester to Providence, now overseen by a bi-state corridor commission for which Jan H. Reitsma is the executive director.
Federal plans made public recently call for establishment of a new national park comprising parts of the corridor, namely the Old Slater Mill in Pawtucket, the mill villages of Ashton and Slatersville in Rhode Island, as well as Whitinsville and Hopedale in Massachusetts.
Robert D. Billington, president of the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council, a member and former chairman of the commission, said that, in addition to the added respect and esteem such a designation would provide, major corridor assets that include the river itself, the Blackstone Canal next to the river and the riverside bike path running from the Massachusetts line to Bristol would be protected virtually forever. “That [protection] is something we would not have otherwise,” he said.
Federal cost of the new park would be a one-time $6.1 million expenditure, with a $3.5 million annual operating budget.
No timeframe has been released to indicate when enabling legislation will be considered, but Reitsma noted that public hearings will be held.
And while he agreed that national-park designation would bring added protection and resources, Reitsma stressed the importance of maintaining the many vital collaborations the corridor has forged in both states, particularly with environmental groups.
Since the corridor was created, he said, “we have worked very closely with the watershed associations in both states, and other environmental groups.” National park status would provide “more dependable resources” to support those partners, he suggested. The comments of Billington and Reitsma came a few days after U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar visited the region earlier this month and expressed unqualified support for the national historic park proposal.
“Every dollar invested in our parks and public lands returns $4 in economic growth,” Salazar said during his visit.
An 84-page report on the national park proposal, conducted by the Department of the Interior and released in July, notes that, “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.”
The Blackstone River Coalition, based in Worcester with members in both states, has worked since the 1970s to clean up the river with a goal of making it clean enough to swim and fish in by 2015.
A sticking point that has slowed clean-up efforts, said Peter G. Coffin, coordinator of the coalition and an NPS ranger in the corridor, is the fact that the two states have different standards and use different methods to test and assess the quality of the river water.
The Blackstone Canal, which ran 44 miles along the river, is now full of debris, silt and dead trees in many spots, in spite of 40 years of volunteer clean-up efforts, Billington noted. With federal support, the canal could be cleaned up more quickly than local and state efforts currently allow, Billington suggested.
With a restored canal, Reitsma said kayakers and canoeists traveling downstream along the river would be able to return via the canal since “kayaking up the river can be difficult because of the current.” He noted that parts of the canal are now being restored in the Ashton area of Cumberland and held out the hope that NPS status would make available federal transportation funds for the canal work. &#8226

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