PROVIDENCE – First Beach in Newport is slip-sliding away. The Cliff Walk is disintegrating and eroding. A major source 0f Newport’s fresh water supply, located behind First Beach, is in jeopardy.

Translated, the City by the Sea is under the relentless assault of climate change, as are many of the coastal communities bordering on Narragansett Bay.

Like an old Saturday Night Live sketch from the 1980s, the question is moot when it comes to how to preserve and save the boundaries of Newport from encroachment by the sea.

Save The Bay, the quintessential citizen’s advocacy nonprofit founded in 1970 to protect Narragansett Bay, is doing the best it can to motivate the government and the citizenry to do more to not let the gains of the last five decades slip away

Recently, ConvergenceRI sat down with Topher Hamblett, the executive director of Save The Bay, to query him about his organization’s messaging during a time of such dire environmental consequences.

What began as a straightforward interview quickly migrated into a philosophical launch about the ways in which we see – and don’t see Narragansett Bay.

And, Hamblett was patient with ConvergenceRI’s long-winded introduction; so, too was Juan Espinoza, the new communications director at Save The Bay.

The goal was to find a common ground around what was missing from the messaging about Narragansett Bay – and the ways that Save The Bay might increase its advocacy efforts.

ConvergenceRI: It’s been a wild and wooly week, two weeks for Save The Bay. Did the annual “swim” get cancelled because of the weather?  

  HAMBLETT:
Nope. We dodged thunder, lightning and fog. And we pulled off the event within a very narrow weather window.

ConvergenceRI: So, was it successful, with lots of drama?

HAMBLETT: There wasn’t lots of drama, other than real-time tracking of the weather systems; the event went off very smoothly. So actually, there wasn’t drama at all, which is how we like it.

ConvergenceRI: You cannot argue with “no drama” Topher.

HAMBLETT: Our number-one concern is safety, of course. We have had to cancel because of fog. We almost had to cancel the last two years prior, because of thunder and lightning and fog.

Thankfully, in both cases, the conditions became perfect, right at the right time. The swimmers worked very hard. They look forward to it. And, if there’s any way that we can pull off the event, we do. Of course, that includes consulting with the Coast Guard. Because, ultimately, the Coast Guard, they make the call. Which is as it should be.

ConvergenceRI: Thanks to Rhode Island Recycled Metals, you had drama in terms of the fire, a second one in two months. I don’t know whether you got a chance to read the piece that I did earlier this spring, in which the Attorney General was holding a news conference to talk about victims, and how often victims didn’t have a voice.

It came out of a discussion I had with a videographer who works for the Community Care Alliance. About the need to create a better understanding about how when such a fire happens, it’s not just the residents of South Providence – everyone in the city is a potential victim of the toxic smoke. [See link to ConvergenceRI story, “Speaking up, speaking out to honor, amplify the voices of victims.”]

I had approached the videographer about doing a video, asking: “Where does Allens Avenue begin? Where does it end?”

How do we see ourselves as part of it? Mostly what we see is what we see from the highway. But we don’t really see the ways we interact with all the different parts of Allens Avenue. We simply see it as the snapshots as we are traveling past the billboards: “In Pain? Call Wayne?”

We talked about that last year. It’s now the 44^thbirthday of the big blue bug, Nibbles Woodalot. What is it that we see? Are you familiar with John Berger and his book, The Ways of Seeing.

HAMBLETT: No

ConvergenceRI: It’s a very illustrative book about what we see and what we don’t see. I would argue that we don’t see Narragansett Bay; we often don’t interact with the Bay. We don’t see ourselves as part of the life force that is the Bay and everything that goes with it.

My question, as I asked last year: How do you visualize that? What’s the billboard?  How do you bring that home when you talk about education and children? How do we visualize what Narragansett Bay means to us? It’s an open-ended question.

HAMBLETT: We see Allens Avenue from the water as well. In addition to our school programs, we bring public officials like the Attorney General, like legislators, like city council members, up the river to see it, from that vantage point. Almost without fail, it is an eye-popping experience for them.

There is a lot of connectivity to the Providence River and the Upper Bay here in the community. Several decades ago, you wouldn’t see so many people out on the water fishing, fishing along the access points along the shore, but that is growing, more and more people are connected to it and using it. For the community, it’s becoming, over time, something that is a much more [grounded] connection to the water and the waterfront that is growing. And hopefully, the commitment to protecting the gains we have made.

It used to be an open sewer out here. It was awful, with toxic waste and untreated sewage daily. What’s happening out on the water today, with so many more people using it, connecting to it, would have been unthinkable several decades ago. I think that connection is growing; that understanding is growing. I am not sure I am answering your question.

ConvergenceRI: It’s a conundrum. You’re very much aware of it. It’s your life’s work.

HAMBLETT: Yes.

ConvergenceRI: I believe my headline from last year’s story when I interviewed you was something like: “Why is the sea boiling hot? Fish don’t vote.” [See link below to ConvergenceRI stories, “Why is the sea boiling hot? Fish don’t lie, and dish don’t vote,” and “Keeping our eyes on the prize: Saving Narragansett Bay.”]

If fish could tell their story, what would they say? [ConvergenceRI breaks into a chorus of the theme song from the 1960s TV show, “Mr. Ed,” “A horse is a horse, of course of course, and no one can speak to a horse, of course, unless that horse is the famous Mr. Ed…”]

HAMBLETT: If fish could speak right now, they would say, “Keep going!” Keep going; keep going. Again, comparing today to two decades ago, three decades ago, every year now, millions of menhaden are running up Narragansett Bay, right up into Waterplace Park.

ConvergenceRI: Has that happened again this year? I know that last year there was a big influx of menhaden.

HAMBLETT: I have not seen the bonanza level of menhaden this year, we’re still in July; [the migration] happens during the summer and during the fall, too. And, of course, chasing those menhaden are blue fish and striped bass.

I think that if fish could speak, they’d say: Thank you! That’s not enough! Keep going!”

Narragansett Bay has been transformed. The third phase of the CSO [combined sewage overflow] tunnel will be done soon, in the next year or two. That’s a big deal. The quahoging line has moved up the river again. All this is a long way of saying: Conditions have changed a lot [for the better]. And, one of the things that we are concerned about at Save The Bay is complacency; it’s backsliding. We need to protect the gains we have made, and keep going.

ConvergenceRI: Could you see a cartoon of the fish talking to each other? What would they say, and what would they communicate? Would that be an effective tool of communications and messaging?

It’s something that I wrestle with all the time. What can I do better, in terms of communicating what is happening about Narragansett Bay. I am prejudiced, but I thought that the two-part series of interviews I did with you last year about Save The Bay and Narragansett Bay was excellent, in the way that you were able to frame the issues and challenges. It captured everything that was going on. I believe that there needs to be a way of talking about this that it makes sense.

HAMBLETT: When I think about access to the shore, I think we need more shoreline space for people in the community to go fishing, or just sitting by the water and getting the spiritual benefits of being by the water. Or, just enjoying it as a place to cool off. Collect your thoughts. Bring your family. Have a picnic.

There are so many ways that people value Narragansett Bay and the Providence River, the shoreline. Again, it is very heartening to me to see more and more people actually in, on or near the water, enjoying it. It’s a wonderful thing. I think now we are working with community groups to open up more access points along the river. It’s a challenge. But it is important that we do it.

ConvergenceRI: If you could lead a tour – one of the things that I suggested to Providence Mayor Smiley, but he hasn’t taken me up on my offer yet. Have you taken Mayor Smiley out on the water?

HAMBLETT: Not yet. I have talked to him about it. We will do that. For sure.

ConvergenceRI: When that happens, let me know. I would really like to cover that and report on that. Perhaps the Mayor will be willing to “talk with the fishes.”

HAMBLETT: I believe that there is a potential for Allens Avenue to really develop into a place that has more access to the shoreline.

When those fires occurred, both of them, of course, smoke is spewing everywhere, right up the river into Pawtucket. One of the other stress points around a fire in a scrap yard is: Think of all the other activities going on at the Port. The storage of combustible fuel. There is a real risk. People live here and work here; people who live in the neighborhood. People who work off of Allens Avenue. There is a risk of something catastrophic happening, if such a fire got out of control.

I have talked with you, Richard, about environmental enforcement. The lack of enforcement. The decline in enforcement over the many years has allowed things like Rhode Island Recycled Metals to profit. Among the many things that are still on our agenda is making sure that the state is enforcing the laws that are on the books, both for water quality and for air quality.

And it is places like the South Side that are hit hardest when environmental laws are not enforced. Because there are so many sources of pollution, both in the water and air.

The Prov Port is in the beginning stages of a doing a master plan. There has been one, and I think later today, a second community meeting. It’s not about writing the plan; it’s much more a discussion among stakeholders, including us, about how the Port should incorporate community feedback.

So, this is not a group that is going to write the plan. This is community feedback on what is the vision for the Port broadly, and what is he best way to engage the community. It’s very important that we do that.

The master plan is being required by the city of Providence. We are right in the early stages of a fresh look at much of Allens Avenue, anyway. The Port is not all of Allens Avenue, of course.

ConvergenceRI: How important is the role that the Attorney General is playing? He seems to be, at least from my perspective, doing a tremendous job as serving as the public health advocate, and demanding that the government be responsible in ways that it hasn’t been.

Attorney General Neronha has been collaborating with you in trying to make sure that there is enforcement. The potential is to shut down the operation of Rhode Island Recycled Metals under reckless endangerment statutes.  

HAMBLETT: This whole saga has dragged on way too long. That facility should have been required to stop operating and install stormwater control systems and get the permits to do it years ago.

And, it’s been frustrating to everyone that it has taken so long. And, it is still not done yet. The facility, you can see it every day, the gates are closed; they appear to be moving stuff around on the site, but they are not taking in new scrap.

The Attorney General has been aggressive, I think. And, we do have a new judge assigned to it, Judge Brian Stern.

I think there are things going on that we don’t see, in terms of how DEM and the Attorney General are working together to make sure that the storm water systems are installed as required by law. We support the Attorney General’s call for shutting it down.

The [recycling firm] is a bad actor. They don’t care about the community. They don’t care about the law.

Again, this has been allowed to happen because of the decline in environmental enforcement. Had there been aggressive enforcement right up front more than a decade ago, we wouldn’t be talking about this topic.

ConvergenceRI: In the best of all possible worlds, what would you like to see happen?

HAMBLETT:  I would like to see the facility shut down.