In 1980, up to $1.5 million worth of silver flowed from Providence factories into the Narragansett Bay, giving new meaning to the phrase “a waste of money.” Much of this silver originated from the electroplating firms located in the Huntington Expressway Industrial Park on the north shore of Mashapaug Pond.

Discovered in the 1800s, electroplating revolutionized jewelry production by using electricity to apply thin layers of gold or silver to items cast from other, cheaper metals. By 1880, Rhode Island was home to more jewelry businesses than any other state. Providence became  known as the costume jewelry capital of the world, its downtown called the jewelry district. A century later, however, the center of the jewelry industry had relocated three miles to the southeast, to the Huntington Expressway Industrial Park next to Mashapaug Pond.

Looking at its current arrangement of warehouses and parking lots, it may be hard to imagine the industrial park as a space that almost 500 families called home. Children played games in the road, buzzed around on homemade scooters, and snuck peaches and plums from their neighbors’ trees. Former resident Ed Hooks recalls the paper route that took him through a grid of streets, some paved and some not, whose names are now only found on historical maps. As a child, Ed swam in Mashapaug Pond, played with frogs, and caught crawfish in the brook that flowed toward Niantic Avenue. Some neighbors, he remembers, preferred the brook’s snapping turtles, and used them for soup.

When the Providence Redevelopment Authority bought this 117-acre parcel in 1961, it displaced those residents and adapted the land for commercial use. New sewer lines and broader, flatter roadways made the space an attractive location for factories involved in electrotyping and electroplating – casting and coating objects in metal. These operations involved dangerous ammonias, cyanides, and toxic heavy metals that flowed, like the silver, into Providence’s waterways.

Today, the quiet expanse of the Huntington Expressway Industrial Park betrays its current economic and environmental challenges. In 2010, the complex had only 33 tenants. However unremarkable it may appear, though, the industrial park continues to have an important impact on the local environment. Its wide paved roads, flat-roofed buildings, and sparse vegetation create a “heat island” with higher daytime air temperatures than other areas of Providence. The absence of trees also contributes to stormwater runoff. As rainwater hits asphalt surfaces, it mixes with road salt, animal waste, fertilizers, car fluids, and other pollutants. Without pervious surfaces or plants to filter this toxic water, it flows unobstructed until it reaches a storm drain or larger body of water. This pollutes the park’s immediate neighbor, Mashapaug Pond, and the broader watershed, which includes the ponds in Roger Williams Park and Narragansett Bay. The cost of cleaning these toxic chemicals from the watershed greatly exceeds $1.5 million in silver.

Happily, several organizations are actively working to reduce the amount of pollutants flowing through Mashapaug Pond’s watershed by educating citizens and commercial tenants about stormwater runoff, repaving hard surfaces with crushed stone or permeable concrete, planting trees and other native plants, and redirecting water into rain barrels and rain gardens. Several of these initiatives are planned for the Huntington Expressway Industrial Park.

Discussion Questions

Besides financial losses, what different “costs” have there been to doing business in the Huntington Expressway Industrial Park?

What steps could be taken to inform the businesses currently located in the industrial park about their impact on Rhode Island’s waterways?

Where are places that jewelry is manufactured today?

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Mashapaug Pond is at the center of a complex freshwater ecosystem. Underneath the pond’s calm green surface is a strange world of toxic carp, three-eyed frogs, and rusting refuse. Many people think of cities and the wilderness as completely separate spaces, but Mashapaug Pond is the perfect example of urban wilderness. At the pond, the natural ecosystem, or community of living things, overlaps with the human-built city.

Mashapaug Pond has suffered from a long history of pollution. During Providence’s industrial heyday in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, people were largely unaware of the consequences of releasing industrial chemicals and other pollutants into the soil and water. At Mashapaug Pond, the Gorham Manufacturing Company – a major employer – was also responsible for a significant amount of pollution. Neighborhood resident Ed Hooks recalled: “You didn’t have too many ecologists back then. You didn’t have too many people that were concerned about that type of thing. So, when it comes to Gorham, people just saw Gorham as probably a place for employment more than anything else. If they’re dumping stuff in there, so what. They’ll give me a paycheck today.” Millions of dollars have now been spent to remediate Gorham’s pollution.

The major source of pond pollution today comes from stormwater runoff.  In urban areas, paved roads, parking lots, and driveways creates impermeable surfaces that water cannot pass through. When it rains, the water isn’t filtered through plants and soil but flows directly into Mashapaug Pond, carrying with it car oil, animal feces, garbage, road salts, and other contaminants.

Mashapaug Pond’s unusually green water is also a clear sign of the pond’s sickness. Storm water runoff causes algal blooms in urban, fresh water ponds by picking up pet waste and fertilizers from lawns and landscaping and carrying them into storm drains that empty in urban ponds, promoting excessive growth of cyanobacteria. This bloom gives the pond its green tint. Cyanobacteria can create toxic conditions for humans, animals, and plants. Signs posted by the Rhode Island Department of Health warn humans of these toxins, but it is impossible to protect plants and animals from the poisonous environment.

Residents have worried about the impact of human activity on Mashapaug Pond for a long time. Local lore alludes to three-eyed frogs, two-headed fish, and other sea monsters that swim in the toxic, green water. In 1905, city park commissioners warned the Rhode Island General Assembly: “it is essential to the health of the neighborhood that they be not polluted by dumping or the crowding of buildings on [Mashapaug’s] shores.” One hundred years later, it is quite clear that the report was ignored. The pond is ringed by large shopping plazas, the Huntington Expressway Industrial Park, and multiple highways. All of these things disrupt the ability of storm water to soak into the ground and continue to contaminate Mashapaug Pond at a detriment to the plants, animals, and humans that share its ecosystem.

Today, groups like the Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island and the Urban Pond Procession, as well as many teachers, students, and residents, are taking action to make sure that conditions at the Pond do not get worse.  Hopefully one day the signs warning that “Mashapaug Pond is Sick” will be unnecessary.

Discussion Questions