Fishermen complain that bureaucrats have over-treated Narragansett Bay and damaged their livelihood. Scientists say the Bay is healthier than it has been in decades. Who's right?
Both. Neither. It depends.
With the improvements in treating wastewater and controlling storm runoff, some are asking a question that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago about what is arguably Rhode Island’s most valuable natural resource: is Narragansett Bay too clean?
On Friday, July 13 at 8 p.m., Mario Hilario asks that very question of fishermen who have seen a steep decline in marine life, and the scholars who represent alternative perspectives.
The Rhode Island Foundation and Rhode Island Monthly presents this latest edition of the Rhode Island PBS Community Conversations series, Is Narragansett Bay Too Clean?
Panelists:
- Al Eagles has been lobstering since he was ten. He built his own boat forty-five years ago and it's the same one he uses today.
- Lanny Dellinger is also a lobsterman. He started quahogging in high school in the 1970s and started lobstering in Rhode Island Sound in the 1990s.
- Candace Oviatt is an oceanography professor at URI and the first woman to earn a doctorate degree from URI's School of Oceanography. She's been studying the inner workings of the bay for more than fifty years.
- Jonathan Stone is the executive director of Save the Bay.
Is Narragansett Bay Too Clean: A Community Conversation encores Saturday, July 14 at noon and 11 p.m., and Sunday, July 15 at 7 p.m. The program will also be available on YouTube after the television broadcast.
SOURCE: The Providence Journal, December 6, 2017: Fishermen: Bay cleanup might be doing harm by Alex Kuffner
