EAST PROVIDENCE — Local, state and federal dignitaries gathered at the city shoreline in Riverside mid-morning Friday, May 24, offering up a curiously-timed, albeit, welcome update on the proposed reopening of the waters in the Providence River at the mouth of Narragansett Bay to swimming.

Specifically, it was announced the aim is to reclassify the coast off Crescent Park as "a licensed, swimmable beach" by this time two years on, May of 2026.

The proclamation notes the current day effort is "the culmination of several water quality improvement projects at the beach after more than a century of non-use for swimming."

As it stands, following the implementation of a program of water quality testing by the Rhode Island Department of Health, the construction of restrooms at the site and the hiring of lifeguards, the public will be able to utilize the waters like it hasn't in over a century.

The RIDOH and the federal Environmental Protection Agency are the funding sources for the latest improvements, but the attempt to make the waters in Riverside once again accessible to humans has been happening for decades.

More recently, the city has used some $2 million in federal funding to reconstruct the Crescent Park seawall and is in the process of using another $300,000 to build the aforementioned restrooms required for beach licensure.

In late 2018, before the change in the city's form of governance it was the beneficiary of a legal settlement garnered by the office of former Rhode Island Attorney General Peter F. Kilmartin to the tune of $850,000.

The money was derived from a $4.1 million pool of funding for a variety of environmentally beneficial projects across the state via a settlement with Volkswagen to compensate the for the selling and leasing of diesel vehicles equipped with illegal and undisclosed emissions control defeat device software in violation of Rhode Island General Law. The funding was used for a stormwater system remediation project at nearby Sabin Point Park.

Due to the efforts of the state, city and Save the Bay in some cases in recent years and others for decades, the water quality has improved to a point where the beach could possibly be re-opened upon the storm water issues being remediated.

In the fall of 2017, the city used multiple grant sources towards the effort. A $47,200 grant received from the Bay and Watershed Restoration Fund offered by the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management in 2014 to construct a large sand filter.

At the same time, the city also received a $100,000 grant from New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission, which, likewise, will help reduce stormwater flow into the park.