By Dave Ortiz
PBN Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island taxpayers would save nearly $1.9 million in the next fiscal year if the state merged three environmental agencies, according to a proposal by Gov. Donald L. Carcieri.
The consolidation plan, which Carcieri submitted with his budget for fiscal year 2009, would merge the staffs of the R.I. Coastal Resources Management Council and the R.I. Water Resources Board into the R.I. Department of Environmental Management.
The CRMC, which regulates the state’s waters and coastline, would become a separate program within DEM, and the council itself would remain intact, under the governor’s plan.
The Water Resources Board, which manages Rhode Island’s drinking water supply, would be merged into the DEM’s Office of Water Resources.
The Water Resources Board Corporate, which has the power to issue revenue bonds to support the work of that agency, would remain as a quasi-public agency.
At least 29 positions would be eliminated as a result of the agency consolidation, through both layoffs and the elimination of currently vacant positions, a DEM official said today at a House Finance Committee hearing on the proposal.
Eighteen jobs would be eliminated at DEM, eight at CRMC and six at WRB.
On Tuesday, the CRMC mailed a cease-and-desist order citing the DEM with alleged wetlands violations at Fishermen’s Memorial State Park in Narragansett, according to Laura Ricketson-Dwyer, a CRMC spokeswoman. CRMC staff believed that DEM workers who cleared several acres in the state park’s campground late last year did not get permits needed to do the work, which was within 200 feet of wetlands, she said.
W. Michael Sullivan, the DEM’s executive director, suggested that CRMC had a political motive for issuing the cease-and-desist order in advance of today’s State House hearing on Carcieri’s consolidation plan for work that was done months ago.
“The work started in October, it ended in November, and they were invited to it. So to have it play out now is troubling,” he said.
But Ricketson-Dwyer said the CRMC staff had learned of the alleged wetlands violation only on Monday or Tuesday. “This is not something we kept in our back pocket.”
For information about the R.I. Department of Environmental Management, visit www.dem.ri.gov.
