Unseen and not considered: The EJ letters public officials will not see
Pawtucket asked Friends of the Moshassuck to write a letter of support for their river clean-up grant application, but rejected the letter because it criticized the City's EJ record...
The struggle to Save Morley Field continues. As Pawtucket goes full blast to destroy Morley Field and create a toxic waste parking lot, it is at the same time seeking grants to restore the Moshassuck River. Morley Field is the only park on the Moshassuck River and has the best access to the river of any site in the city.
The information presented below goes from the most recent communication to the oldest, featuring the letters of support from the Friends of the Moshassuck up to the official letters from public officials who are not willing to read or make public our letter as it does not fit how they operate. The system is rigged to let only the official story out.
Then you will see the letters I wrote to public officials after I sent them the letter of support. I anticipated that Pawtucket would reject our letter and not include it in the packet, so I took the initiative and sent it to the agencies involved to let them know that there is no community support for this grant without reopening Morley Field. The last thing is the original letter. Not exactly a letter of support, but a statement of truth. Speaking truth to power is never popular, but that’s sort of who I am. We are all outlaws in the eyes of America.
The letters and emails have been edited for clarity, and links added to explain terms that may be unfamiliar.
June 21, 2024
Dear Mr. Gerritt,
I am in receipt of your letters, that were to be included in our response packets for SNEP and OSCAR (Ocean State Climate Adaptation and Resilience). We have decided not to include your letters in our applications. I respect your passion for your work. While we appreciate your support of this project, the remainder of the letter was counterproductive to the goal of our application. We hope that in the future we can work together in our shared goal of improving the quality of all watersheds in our community.
Thank you,
Bianca Policastro, Director of Planning City of Pawtucket
January 20, 2024
Greg,
For this grant program, we don't accept letters of support per se. We accept only letters of commitment from partners and those must be included in the grant application.
Regards,
Thomas Ardito, SNEP Watershed Implementation Grant Program Director
June 18, 2024
Letter of support for the grants from Greg Gerritt, Watershed Steward for Friends of the Moshassuck
Tom, Sue, Kimberly,
I was asked (in my role as the watershed steward for Friends of the Moshassuck) by Emily Morse of the City of Pawtucket to write a letter of support for grants that the city is submitting to DEM (Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management) and SNEP (Southeast New England Program) to do restoration along the Moshassuck River. I was downright shocked considering the struggle Friends of the Moshassuck and all of the people involved in Save Morley Field have been having with the City of Pawtucket to prevent the destruction of the largest green space in Woodlawn, and only park with access to the Moshassuck River.
Of course, the Moshassuck River needs restoration, and it has been nearly impossible to do so until the CSO (combined sewer overflows) project is done in the neighborhood, but that time is coming soon and it is time for the Moshassuck to be restored. Many of my colleagues in Pawtucket, Environmental Justice advocates, and I have come to understand just how bad Pawtucket’s environmental record is, so I wrote a letter of support focusing on the need and potential, but also asking that very strict guide rails be erected to make sure Pawtucket institutes EJ institutional changes.
I am not at all confident that Pawtucket will forward my letter to you (I wrote one letter addressed to both DEM and SNEP) and I am unsure of the protocol, but since they specifically asked for the letter, I wanted to make sure it got into your hands. It is a complicated issue, and in public arenas, there are no permanent friends and no permanent enemies. Friends of the Moshassuck and Save Morley Field would like to cooperate with the City of Pawtucket, but we cannot support these grants if it does not contain provisions for the restoration of Morley Field as part of the program and the creation of EJ institutions with political independence. If the grants come with appropriate strings, Friends of the Moshassuck would gladly participate in the restoration of the river, watershed, and community.
Forgive my trespass, but what else would you expect from me?
Greg
Here’s the letter of support that will not be considered by the agencies with the power to approve the grants:
On behalf of Friends of the Moshassuck, I am submitting our letter of support for the two grants, addressed to both DEM and SNEP. I have circulated it to my board and they appreciate the sentiments involved. I kept it as short as I could. I do not know if you will appreciate the letter, but as you asked us to write one, and we wrote a truly honest assessment of the situation, we expect you to include it in your packet to DEM and SNEP. As I know the administrators of the programs, I will be sending it along to them with a personal note. I hope Pawtucket gets the grant and reverses a lifetime of neglect of the Moshassuck and the neighborhoods near it.
Greg Gerritt, Watershed Steward for Friends of the Moshassuck
To the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management and Thomas Ardito, SNEP Watershed Implementation Grant Program Director
Letter of Support for the OSCAR Proposal - Moshassuck River Urban Restoration Program
“Friends of the Moshassuck has been asked by the City of Pawtucket to supply letters of support for two grant proposals related to the restoration of the Moshassuck River and the surrounding communities. We were shocked [to be asked] considering the work we are doing to oppose the illegal, unethical, and corrupt actions the City of Pawtucket has taken around Morley Field, the only park adjoining the Moshassuck River, and the only public access to the river in the entire city. Even so, Friends of the Moshassuck hopes you will look kindly on these grant applications, not so much because we believe the City of Pawtucket does exemplary work and would do a fabulous job with the money if awarded. Pawtucket has a rather sordid record when it comes to environmental restoration in low-income, ethnic, and Environmental Justice communities, and it is our sincere hope that this money can be used to right some rather serious environmental injustices that have been perpetrated by the city, primarily the closing of parks in low-income, ethnic, and Environmental Justice communities - a practice with at least a 20-year history in Pawtucket. ( I realize that if we are making such charges we should be able to back them up. I am not including documentation here, but can produce it if asked, and much of it has been quoted and linked to in Steve Ahlquist’s Substack.)
“It is beyond ironic that Pawtucket is applying for a grant to restore the Moshassuck River environs at the same time it refuses to even discuss, with any legitimate community or environmental group, the restoration of the only park in Pawtucket along the Moshassuck River and the only large green space in Woodlawn - a park the Mayor is hell-bent on turning into a parking lot for a highly polluting warehouse delivery business with hundreds of vehicles a day - adding to the pollution of the neighborhood by dumping tons of toxic demolition debris right next to the river. We have looked at what planning has done to shrink Morley Field, a plan that only developed after the law protecting part of the park became crystal clear to the legal department that had previously ignored the situation. (They are still ignoring the legal protections of the other half of the park.)
“For one thing, the public right of way to the river is on the side of the park which is slated to be a parking lot, separating the park from the river access. In other words, it was slapped together rather than thought out and was done in consultation with no one who knows the river.
“I will say that the restoration efforts of the Moshassuck are behind all of the other rivers in the neighborhood. For Friends of the Moshassuck, one of the biggest obstacles is that there has never been a TMDL (total maximum daily load) for the river due to raw sewage flowing into the river during every big storm. With phase 3 of the CSO project soon to rectify the situation with a tunnel to Bucklin Point for rainwater overflows, this may be the first time in the 25 years of Friends of the Moshassuck that one can even realistically dream of restoring the lower river. While the city should have taken action many years ago, it is also understandable. Now is the time for action, and these funds are an opportunity that Pawtucket should take advantage of, especially so it can reopen Morley Field.
“To reiterate, Friends of the Moshassuck supports Pawtucket getting these two grants, separately and in partnership with other communities and the State of Rhode Island, but only if serious guard rails are in place that require Pawtucket to end the practice of closing Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF)-protected parks, fully restore and open Morley Field at full size, and that the grant work be structured to make sure Pawtucket involves the community. Recent efforts by Pawtucket have shown the City to be incapable of engaging with the community in a meaningful manner.
“I live just across the border, in Providence, where a Sustainability Commission, (as well as a Racial and Environmental Justice Commission which produced the highly regarded Providence Climate Justice Plan) with some of the best EJ activists I have ever met, examines City plans and actions and produces serious critiques for government officials. Serious guard rails to keep Pawtucket attentive to EJ concerns would include Pawtucket creating similar institutions as an internal check on the power structure.”
A few examples of behavior that needs checking by the community:
“At the 2023 public meeting in Woodlawn to discuss Morley Field we insisted on an open public discussion, which was not on the agenda, and eventually prevailed. Every single person spoke against the proposal, but the press release the city sent out the next day said, Wow, what a great meeting, and that everyone loved the proposal.
“A similar perversion of the truth occurred when the City filed its application for the Morley Field conversion only after the community forced them to apply instead of ignoring the law. The most blatant and easily caught lie was when Pawtucket said there was no osprey at Morley Field when there is five years of video evidence of osprey successfully fledging young at Morley Field on the MoshassuckCritters Youtube channel.
“The final demonstration of Pawtucket’s lack of good faith was when the City did an online survey asking for comments about Morley Field. The results were 174 people opposed to the closure and one person in favor. I sure as heck did not see a press release from the City saying how much the public opposed the closing of Morley Field, and in fact, it was hard to get the info and took a public records request from a reporter to obtain them.
“I cannot say what Pawtucket does elsewhere in the City, but it is obvious the Moshassuck has been the leftover stepchild in Pawtucket. River access is nonexistent. When cleanups have been done, Friends of the Moshassuck has organized them, though with City cooperation, including a big clean up at Morley Field this Earth Day. We understand that combined sewers have made restoring the Moshassuck exceedingly difficult, but now is the time. We are hoping that this application is the beginning of a turnaround for the City of Pawtucket as regards the Moshassuck, Environmental Justice, and the preservation of LWCF-funded recreation areas. If the funders can guarantee a transparent and public process, we enthusiastically support Pawtucket receiving these grants to remediate and restore a sorely neglected and polluted river and members of the adjoining communities would gladly serve on a steering committee. But only if the guard rails are in place.”
Greg Gerritt, Watershed Steward Friends of the Moshassuck
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As usual, this makes no sense for the people who live in the Morely Field neighborhood, or for the environment in general. The Moshassuck River needs a lot of help, but this may not be the way to go about it.
What can we do about this? I noticed that none of the major print outlets in the area have covered the CLF and Audubon letters--they all seem to slant toward what I can only assume is the official position of "oh, gee, EJ, that's a new one, we didn't know!" and sunny optimism about being able to go ahead as soon as they get NPS approval.
Do we write to the city? NPS? Papers? Our city representatives? (what's the point; mine doesn't even acknowledge receiving a letter about street cleaning--and not "they don't do my street," but "these are systemic problems." A lifelong resident told me, "Don't bother; they aren't street cleaning. They are just paying someone to sit in that vehicle and go up and down the streets.") This is ridiculous, but I'd like to do something that might be productive.