On Aquidneck Island, all of the municipal drinking water sources are impaired. The water is safe to drink, but only thanks to an intense purification process that is getting more and more costly. ecoRI News reporter Colleen Cronin and publisher Joanna Detz discuss the causes of water pollution and those working to save the island’s drinking water.

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This transcript was edited for clarity and length.

Colleen Cronin 

Welcome to the Blab Lab, the twice monthly podcast with reporters of ecoRI News where we look at the critical environmental issues facing southern New England. I’m reporter Colleen Cronin. And today I’m here with my colleague, ecoRI’s publisher Jo Detz to talk about a story I recently wrote on drinking water source contamination on Aquidneck Island. Hi, Jo.

Joanna Detz 

Hey, Colleen.

Colleen Cronin 

So, I wrote the story on this water source issue on Aquidneck Island. You live on Aquidneck island. So, I thought I would leave the questions to you.

Joanna Detz 

Yeah, passing the mantle of power. So one of the things that really surprised me when I read your story, was learning that all the water sources for Aquidneck Island are considered contaminated by EPA standards. So, does that mean I need to worry about the stuff coming out of my faucet? Like it doesn’t sound good, right?

Colleen Cronin 

It does not sound good, but you don’t need to worry about what’s coming out of your faucet. Newport Water has spent millions and millions and millions of dollars to install a high-tech state-of-the-art water treatment source. So even though the water that’s in those freshwater, surface water, drinking sources on the island, those reservoirs, is considered contaminated by the EPA and by the state, by the time it gets to your tap, it is very, very good, high quality, clean drinking water.

Joanna Detz 

That’s a relief. So, what is going on? Like why, why are the sources so contaminated on Aquidneck Island?

Colleen Cronin 

Yeah, so the contaminations are because of nutrients, basically. Aquidneck Island has been one of the more highly developed parts of the United States since it was colonized. And there’s a lot of houses, there’s a lot of businesses, there’s a lot of agriculture happening on the island, in very close proximity to the water sources. So, when it rains, or if someone’s septic fails, the likelihood that runoff and sewage is going to end up in those drinking water sources is a lot higher. So, they always end up testing very high for nutrients which cause algal blooms and cyanobacteria, which makes the water at its source not safe to drink. And that’s why a lot of money has to be put into treating it.

Joanna Detz 

So, what is being done at the water resource level to treat the water to make it safe, that it comes out of the tap clean enough for me to drink?

Colleen Cronin 

This is… There’s a lot of multisyllabic words, polysyllabic words that I’m about to use. So, a lot of gross stuff ends up in the water and you have to be able to treat the water or take those things out. To put it kind of simply, there are chemicals that they add to the water that disinfect or neutralize those bacteria that are in the water and those bad things that are in the water that are not safe for us to drink. Part of the reason why they had to build a more state-of-the-art facility in Portsmouth was because there’s something called trihalomethanes, which are a compound that ends up coming together when you treat water that has cyanobacteria in it. So, treating does a lot. It can take out, you know, the bad bacteria that you don’t want. Cyanobacteria actually isn’t a bacteria. It’s an algae. But when the chemicals are added to the water that have cyanobacteria in it, it can make this byproduct, trihalomethanes. And those can actually be bad for people. So, this state-of-the-art treatment system is really good about actually making sure that those trihalomethanes are at lower levels in the water. It also can reduce PFAS in the water, which are another emerging contaminant that people are concerned about, those “forever chemicals” that come off of firefighting foams and water-resistant products. So, there’s like a lot of things going on there. And what’s ironic about it, and we had an event talking about this, but Alex Chuman from Aquidneck Land Trust — which we can talk about how open space can help with these issues — he was talking about how, you know, we spend millions and millions of dollars to treat our water. But in New York City, they get their water from reservoirs that are upstate that are nearly pristine in the super rural areas in northern New York. So, you don’t have to spend a lot of money if your water sources are good, but ours just are in super highly developed areas, and these contaminants are going, flushing, right into them.

Joanna Detz 

Right, and we’re getting our water locally. I mean, you want to eat local food and reduce food miles traveled, but in this case, it’s causing an issue. So, it just seems like so many chemicals are getting pumped into the water to reduce these contaminants. Is there anything that can be done outside of that decontamination process that can help mitigate some of these contaminants before they enter the drinking water source?

Colleen Cronin 

Yeah, so I mean, this is a unique problem to Aquidneck Island. Even in Rhode Island, a lot of other areas have aquifer drinking water sources below the ground or just farther away from development. I don’t foresee us knocking down buildings and restoring a lot of open space to Aquidneck Island…

Joanna Detz 

Really?

Colleen Cronin 

…to pre-colonial times. But that being said, there are still a lot of things you can do with your developed properties to prevent untreated or unfiltered water from getting into these reservoirs. From like maybe a larger standpoint, if there is more open space, open space is great because you have less impervious surfaces like asphalt, so that the water is actually draining into soil before it ends up in these reservoirs. There’s probably more plant life. And there’s then also, you know, not as many bathrooms on that piece of property or there’s not like a carwash on that piece of property that is letting things get into the water. So, the percentage of open space can really be helpful and Aquidneck Land Trust’s Alex Chuman, who came to our event, he spoke to me, and he was saying, you know, water quality is actually a huge part of their mission, even though you would think that land conservation, you know, you don’t necessarily think about water quality. And they’re constantly trying to protect the land that’s in the watershed from development so that there’s not going to be an increase in those chemicals going into the water. So that’s one thing that you can do on kind of a larger level to try to help the problem at the source.

Joanna Detz 

So that sounds like the land trust is working with landowners to conserve property. But what can I do or what can somebody who lives on Aquidneck Island do in their own yard, if they’re lucky enough to have one or in the neighborhood to help reduce some of this runoff from entering drinking water sources?

Colleen Cronin 

There’s actually a lot of things that you can do. One of the easiest things is to build a rain garden. Grass is better than an impervious surface. Although if you’re using a lot of chemicals to treat the grass, those chemicals are going to end up running off, excess chemicals are going to run off and end up in our water, whether that’s the bay or the reservoirs, but a rain garden which sort of has native plants that are like water-soaker-uppers, and they’ll take water in and they’ll help clean it up as it goes through our water system. The rain into to the ground, to the ocean, and then precipitates back up, if you think about that picture that you had in your science textbook. And then also reducing the number of impervious surfaces that you have on your property. Some pervious surfaces are really expensive, like you can buy sort of asphalt-like, -esque materials that will let water drain through them, which is a little expensive. But you can also add some pavers … you could do pavers as your driveway but that’s also pretty expensive… Or you could add some pavers or a drain at the end of your driveway so that, you know, wherever the water is flowing, it’s not just going straight through the driveway and onto the road and into the water source. It’s getting absorbed into the ground a little bit more. So, there’s some things you can do. You know, ironically, taking your car to a carwash rather than washing it on your driveway can be better because they have some mechanisms to clean the water, but also maybe washing your car on the grass instead so that those soaps are going through the grass instead of, again, just going through your driveway and then into like the little brook behind your house. Or trying to use maybe more natural products, making sure that your car’s not leaking oil, and things like that. Those can be really small, helpful things that you can do to try to prevent stuff from getting into the drinking water. Making sure your septic is in a good spot.

Joanna Detz 

So important!

Colleen Cronin 

Also, very important. Definitely more expensive, but you know, everybody pretty much is on their own personal wastewater treatment.

Joanna Detz 

It’s true. Yeah. When my husband and I, Frank and I, purchased our house, the owner had to upgrade to a new system. It’s actually an onsite treatment system. It’s not even a septic system. In order to sell the house, because I believe was on a leaching field which, you know, is a no-no by Rhode Island law and when you transfer ownership of the property you have to upgrade. So, yeah, I think a lot of properties are probably still grandfathered into septic. In fact, I learned from a neighbor that our house did not even have plumbing until 1965. They were just going into an outhouse on the property and so that wasn’t even in a, you know, a cistern or any containment system. So fortunately, most people are not using outhouses on the property. But I wanted to go back to the landscaping measures that people can take in their yards. It just seems that it flies in the face of the convention of the American lawn, and just having this beautiful green carpet. And speaking from experience, we at my house, in our yard, have ripped up a lot of lawn. And I think our neighbors thought we were crazy. And we now have wildflowers and a little depression or rain garden. And I think, you know, we’re hoping to sort of lead by example, but I think we’re still like the outliers. And a little weird. One of the neighbors mentioned as Frank was outside gardening, “Oh, yeah, Frank is the one who likes the weeds.” I think there’s a lot of work to do here. But I mean, are there any programs that people can sign up for or are there any demonstration projects?

Colleen Cronin 

Yeah, the Eastern Rhode Island Conservation District, they do a lot of really cool stuff and education, as does Clean Ocean Access. And I know that the Conservation District will do rain barrel workshops, which will always end up filling up very quickly, because you get a rain barrel with it, which can collect your water, and then you use it in your yard. So, hopefully, you’re wasting a little bit less water and not drawing so much on the resources. And they also talk a lot about how you can do rain gardens. There are examples of rain gardens throughout the island. There’s a really great example at Common Fence Point. And Oakland Forest, there is an example of kind of a constructed wetland, it’s like a rain garden on steroids sort of, they use rock and different materials to create a drainage system on the property. So, you can add some native plants on your yard where water’s coming in and try to mop up a little bit of it. And then you could, hypothetically, recreate a rock layer wetland on your property. It ranges. But there’s a lot of different things you can do. There’s a lot of instructions online about how to do these things. When I was talking to folks, the one thing that they did emphasize though, is that it’s really important to use native plants. There might be plants that aren’t native that you think are going to be helpful, but it’s better to have native plants because the other plants and animals in the area that are native like birds, co-evolved with these plants. And so, it’s actually native plants that are going to be the most nutritious and the most friendly to other native creatures.

Joanna Detz 

That would be so cool if we had a rain garden in every yard instead of acres and acres of monoculture lawn, it seems like such an easy thing to do. So, a rain garden on every yard. Thanks for coming on the show today, Colleen, and for your reporting.

Colleen Cronin 

Thank you for coming on the show and turning the tables on me.

Joanna Detz 

Oh yeah. I love the power, man. Do I read the outro then?

Colleen Cronin 

Yes, if you want to…

Joanna Detz 

So, Colleen usually does this. I want to thank our listeners for following along. And we want to thank Vanessa Carlton for letting us use her song, “Willows,” for our theme song, which you hear at the beginning and end of every episode. I’m not going to thank myself. If you have any questions, tips, or podcast ideas, you can email Colleen at [email protected]. And for the latest Rhody environmental news, check out our website, ecori.org.