East Providence will receive $225,000 as part of the Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank’s most recent round of Action Grants for participants of the Municipal Resilience Program, which backs projects that will increase climate resilience in communities around the state.

The city will use its share of the overall pool of $4.9 million in grants allocated to help fund efforts on Beach Road, at Willett Pond and the Silver Street Pump Station for improving stormwater management, infiltration, erosion control, water quality and strengthen flood protection.

With support from The Nature Conservancy, East Providence was among 20 municipalities that completed Community Resilience Building workshops and developed prioritized lists of actionable resilience plans and projects. Those cities and towns became eligible to submit applications for MRP Action Grants with a 25 percent local match requirement.

The city, in significant ways, has already done ample work at near the aforementioned sites.

The latest Willet Pond project will remove 2,700 square feet of impervious area and replace the remaining 11,880 square feet of the existing parking area and driveway with crushed stone and pervious pavement, which will improve stormwater infiltration and water quality at this public recreation area.

The Beach Road projects will see the installation of two catch basins, six rows of infiltration chambers, and native plantings where the roadway ends at the coast, preventing runoff and erosion as well as improving public access to the water.

The Silver Street pump station project includes the installation of flood proof doors, removal of an underground storage tank to be replaced with a new above ground tank to house the generator (raised above the 100-year flood elevation), which will protect this critical sewage pumping station from future floods and hazardous weather events.

“Each of the projects makes the city more climate resilient while also improving water quality at two important city parks,” said City Planning and Economic Development Director Bill Fazioli, whose department initiated the grant applications.

He continued, “The Beach Road project has been a priority for a number of years. The city has been working with Save The Bay since 2014 to address this roadway that been eroding and subject to coastal flooding. A design was has been completed for this project and this funding will allow the city to improve public access for the neighborhood and improve water quality of the beach area along the upper bay.

“The funding for Willet Pond will continue the city's work to improve water quality of the pond that will help mitigate algal blooms. Replacing asphalt with permeable materials with filter materials that infiltrate the pond.

“Lastly, the upgrades to the Silver Spring Pump station protects this infrastructure from periodic flooding. This will avoid significant replacement costs in the future.”

Willett Pond, located on Willett Avenue between Indian Road and Forbes Street, is a public recreation area where residents can walk, fish and observe nature. The project calls for the removal of the existing asphalt and 15-inches of sub-base to be replaced with the installation of 15- inches of washed crushed stone and 4-inches of pervious pavement.

The 13-acre park includes a woodland trail around the pond maintained by the Conservation Commission and offers wildlife viewing. Parts of the trail are subject to shallow flooding during times of unusual rain and the pond is stocked each spring with fish by the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management.

Residents, bordering the pond to the west and northeast, raised concerns with the water quality at the pond, reporting fish die-offs and algal blooms. Improving stormwater infiltration and reducing run-off into the pond will improve water quality and reduce algal blooms, improving the health and well-being of the fish and wildlife, as well as improve public health of the residents who visit the park and fish there.

Beach Road is a dead-end street adjacent to Rose Larisa Park, terminating at the public access point
to the shoreline of the Providence River. The park and beach is subject to erosion at the base of the bluff due to wave generating storms and run-off.

A hurricane storm surge would likely cause significant erosion of the coastal bluff, loss of the small beach, and damage to the park’s overlook. So improving stormwater infiltration and preventing erosion at this site will improve water quality, with the long-running goal of once again making it a swimmable beach while protecting the shoreline from the erosion that has caused failure of the seawall in recent years.

The Silver Street Pump Station is a critical pump station that services one of the city’s two wastewater treatment facilities in Riverside, located on Crest Avenue and which treats an average of 2.5 million gallons of wastewater per day serving approximately 46,000 customers in city and neighboring Barrington.

The pump station is located on Silver Street in Riverside, which deadends on one end at the East Bay Bike Path and dead-ends on the other end at Bullocks Cove. Situated on a flood plain, the station is vulnerable to floods and loss of power. Protecting this critical facility from future floods will benefit the tens of thousands of customers it serves and ensure that its operations will not fail during a hazardous weather event.