Providence Water history

1811 An act to incorporate the members of the Water Society.

Over the next two hundred years, occasional hurricanes devastated the city’s shipping, starting with the Great Gale of 1815.

"Old Hospital" and Fox Point area, Peckham 1834, courtesy of Rhode Island Historical Society.

Arnold, James N. Vital Record of Rhode Island, 1636-1850: First Series ; Births, Marriages, and Deaths ; a Family Register for the People.

In 1853, The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) completed the first of many dredging projects in the Providence River.

On February 15,1869, the question was submitted to the voters for the fourth time, and finally the question of introducing water into Providence from the Pawtuxet River was approved.

Water was introduced on Thanksgiving Day, November 30, 1871 with a large celebration, where "a three-inch jet of water reached a height varying from 130 to 150 feet."

Exacerbating the water crisis, sewage and industrial pollution flooded the Pawtuxet River, forcing Providence to become the third city in the United States to employ a chemical sewage treatment plant in 1901.

Built in 1903, it was first designed to burn coal but is now powered by natural gas.

In 1906, the City's first slow sand filter water purification system was constructed.

As early as 1910, only 39 years after the completion of this supply, it was apparent that with the growth of Providence and the extension of the distribution system in nearby communities, it would not be many years before the flow from Pettaconsett would be inadequate to meet the increased demands.

The demand for immigrant labor was so great that the Fabre Line selected Providence as a port of call in 1911.

The constant menace of a possible shortage of water resulted in the appointment by the City Council in January, 1913, of a committee to investigate the possibility of developing an increased water supply.

Strangers streamed into the milling villages within Scituate, Rhode Island in the summer of 1915.

In 1923, it began service eastward in the Mediterranean.

Avelino ‘Chapette’ Rose (1924-), Superintendent of John J. Orr Company later became the First Cape Verdean/Black Processing Sheriff for the State of Rhode Island.

The Six-Principle Baptist Church of the village of South Scituate met for the final time on May 28, 1925 at church member Benjamin Wilbur’s new home in Cranston.

By 1926, health issues and increasing demand on the Pawtuxet River prompted a milestone Providence City Council decision to develop a new modern water supply system.

By 1928, Ledo was President and Business Agent of the Hod Carriers and Laborers Local Union #257.

Incensed by disparaging labor policies conditions and his experience of racism, Ledo, ‘The Chief,’ became Head Organizer, Founder and first Business Agent of the local International Longshoremen’s Association ILA #1329, chartered in 1933.

Eventually, this location was greatly damaged by the 1938 Hurricane.

Then, in 1946, the City Plan Commission (CPC) proposed running a North-South freeway directly over the Providence River’s course, proclaiming that “the foul open sewer, which runs through the heart of the city, will finally be subjugated” (Warner, li-22).

The Civic and Architectural Development of Providence: 1636-1950.

“City Hurricane Committee Urges Fox Point Dam Now.” Providence Journal (Providence, Rhode Island), May 25, 1955: 7.

The Hurricane Barrier, built in 1956 just south of Point Street in Providence, cut Providence’s inner harbor off from most commercial activity due to the overhead clearance of the barrier and the silting-in of the river.

In 1972, the federal Clean Water Act sought to eliminate the discharge of untreated municipal and industrial wastewater to make all American waterways safe for swimming and fishing, and supported the distribution of billions of dollars in grants across the country—but progress was slow.

Providence’s Fields Point plant found itself in the crosshairs of the United State Environmental Protection Agency in 1979, when it was cited as one of the worst wastewater treatment facilities in the United States.

1988, Photo courtesy of Sylvia Ann Soares.

The first completed section, called Waterplace Park, was completed in 1994.

In 1997, WaterFire Providence expanded to 42 braziers and attracted an estimated attendance of 350,000 people during thirteen lightings.

After acquiring a lease on the property from Johnson and Wales University, Save The Bay broke ground on the project in November 2002.

In 2004, according to the National Ocean Economics Program, the ocean economy of Providence County employed 6,300 persons at 430 establishments and paid $120 million in wages.

When she passed away in 2005, Wolf found 1,700 poems she had written, many tinged with longing for a home she could never return to. “My mom lived to 94 and a half,” Wolf said. “She never, ever got over it.”

WaterFire celebrated its 200th lighting in August 2006.

The NBC estimates that, since 2008, over 9 billion gallons of sewage and polluted runoff have been captured and treated.

2014 marks the 20th anniversary of WaterFire lightings in Providence.

Families who had lived there for generations had no choice but to pack up and leave. “My mother’s family had to move because of the reservoir, and it was heart-breaking,” local historian Shirley Arnold told Rhode Island Monthly in 2017. “They were here even before the town was incorporated in 1731.”

In this way, the waterfront bears witness to the social contradictions of the City at large, which ranked third among United States cities with the greatest wealth divides in 2018 (CBS News).

In 2019, the opening of a public pier completed the project.

“Combined Sewer Overflow - Narragansett Bay Commission.” Accessed March 25, 2020. https://www.narrabay.com/programs-and-initiatives/combined-sewer-overflow/ .