Narrow River needs dredging, Narragansett needs sand – can each solve the other’s problem?

NARRAGANSETT – On a mild afternoon recently, a small crew boarded a pontoon boat at the Mettatuxet Yacht Club and set off to survey the Pettaquamscutt River, locally known as the Narrow River. It didn’t take long for the crew to start pointing out things that were wrong in the water.

The color wasn't always brown, said Tony Colombo, president of the Mettatuxet Improvement Association , pointing at the murky water. Just the other day, Colombo heard of four dead striped bass found floating – piscine casualties he said were related to the river’s unhealthy look.

As the pontoon boat chugged along, others pointed excitedly at newly formed sandbars in the river. Alyssa Bonner, the boat’s captain, deftly veered around them and through the narrow channels of deep water that formed the only path forward.

“If you err by even a foot, you’ll be grounded,” said state Rep. Carol McEntee, a Democrat representing Narragansett and South Kingstown who had organized the boat ride.

By the time the boat arrived at the large sandbar at the mouth of the Narrow River, colloquially known as Dog Island, the damage was clear to the naked eye. Dog Island is no longer an island, but a peninsula.

“It’s so confusing as to what’s what anymore … I mean, this looks like a desert,” McEntee said as she surveyed the site.

Last winter's storms clogged the mouth of the Narrow River with hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of sand, according to Jim Vogel, a board member of the Narrow River Preservation Association . The topographic changes have raised ecological and safety concerns.

“People don't understand how much the river's changed,” McEntee said. “When they put their boat in and they drive down to the mouth, many of them are ending up on the sandbar because they don't see that it's totally filled in.”

McEntee and her companions say the health of the Narrow River is at stake. It is technically not a river but a saltwater inlet that stretches about seven miles inland and is connected to a series of freshwater basins fed by a small stream. The ocean’s high and low tides flush the river with saltwater, making its water brackish. It’s a process that has happened since time immemorial, said Vogel, but it’s been disturbed by the sand clogging the Narrow River’s mouth. Vogel estimated up to 100,000 cubic yards of sand need to be removed from the mouth of the Narrow River to restore the flow.

Two birds with one dredge

But where some see just a problem, McEntee and her companions see a solution: Why not dredge the Narrow River and pump the sand to Narragansett Town Beach and other nearby beaches?

Narragansett also suffered severely from the winter storms, which caused the worst erosion the town beach had experienced since Superstorm Sandy in 2012. The town spent about $130,000 to haul 1,200 cubic yards of sand to restore its dunes, among other restoration work.

Dredging the Narrow River and placing the sand on the beaches would solve two perennial problems.

“It's the more sustainable option to contribute to the coastal resiliency that we have here. They've been buying sand from elsewhere and bringing it here. Let's just return the sand back that was here,” McEntee said. “It makes sense.”

There is, of course, one hitch to the plan: Dredging the Narrow River could cost millions of dollars, according to McEntee’s estimates. An estimate from a 2011 feasibility study proposed dredging about 50,000 cubic yards from the Narrow River to fill up just Narragansett Town Beach, which put the price tag at around $2 million.

The Narrow River has been dredged before. In the winter of 2016-2017, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service dredged the river and spread about about 4 inches of sand across 14 acres of salt marsh to protect wildlife habitat and raise the elevation for climate resiliency. McEntee said that just bringing the machinery to dredge the Narrow River cost $500,000.

Timing is another issue. Dredging can only be done within a window of time – usually winter – so as not to disturb the habitat, putting a time crunch on the operation.

And there is a national election on the near horizon. McEntee pointed out that a change of administrations can lead to a change in priorities, and federal funds earmarked for environmental projects may dry up. Donald Trump’s administration, for example, sought to cut billions of dollars in energy and environmental projects.

The issue is now before Narragansett’s Town Council. In August 2022, Narragansett approved spending more than $127,000 to fund a study by Foth Infrastructure & Environment, LLC on the feasibility of dredging the Narrow River. The study’s results are expected to be revealed at a Town Council meeting Aug. 5.

McEntee said the town would have to commit funds to the project, likely annually, to pull it off. That funding ideally would be matched by federal resources. Sen. Jack Reed, a Democrat, has submitted an application for the project to be included in the federal budget, according to McEntee.

The idea of dredging the Narrow River to replenish Narragansett’s beaches has come up many times before, but McEntee and the others think this year it has a better chance of moving forward because the stakes are so high.

“It has to be done," Colombo said, "or the river is going to die.”

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Narrow River needs dredging, Narragansett needs sand – can each solve the other’s problem?