Woonsocket on track for new train service

Posted by Wayne G. Barber

Plans for a new commuter railroad that will connect Woonsocket to Worcester in the north and Providence in the south are moving forward, with longtime tenants at One Depot Square in Woonsocket relocating to make room for Boston Surface Railway Company headquarters.
Blackstone Heritage Corridor Inc., an organization that has been located in the city since the 1990s, announced this week that it will be moving to the Linwood Mill in Whitinsville, Mass.
The news is the latest sign that a plan by railway Executive Director Vincent Bono is gaining momentum, as the group evacuates to make room for the company’s home, already listed as Woonsocket on its website.
Bono plans to run commuter trains between Worcester’s Union Station and Providence’s Station Building twice a day, with just one stop in Woonsocket along the way.
“We had been on the fence about adding Woonsocket at the start, however Mayor Baldelli-Hunt convinced us to re-examine the ridership potential here and make Woonsocket our headquarters. Since then her support and enthusiasm has been invaluable,” Bono told The Breeze this week.
In terms of construction at the historic depot, which was first built in 1882 to serve as a passenger stop for the Providence and Worcester Railroad, Bono said he will add a platform on the western side of the building for high level boarding.
In terms of tenants, he said, “We are exploring adding a coffee concession and a USPS authorized shipping kiosk with post office boxes for rent.”
The complete trip from Worcester to Providence is expected to take around 80 minutes as of the train’s first scheduled run in 2018, but will be shortened to 60 minutes after upgrades, according to Bono, who added that the company expects to release some good news about progress in mid July.
BSRC is reportedly exploring the feasibility of an earlier service start for the route from Woonsocket to Providence only.
Bono is leasing the downtown building from the state Department of Transportation, and will rent the tracks from P & W Lines, which currently owns and operates a freight service along the route.
“The last passenger train left Worcester Union Station for Providence in 1960. The next one is leaving very soon,” the company’s website explains.
Bono said he offered to let both the BHC and the National Park Service stay in the building.
“Our office needs are pretty modest,” he said. “The NPS hasn’t made a decision yet but they can stay as long as they like.”
Bono said he is also exploring subletting some of the unused office space to a single practitioner, and a chiropractor and an attorney have already made inquiries.
And for fans of the city’s favorite winter attraction, The Blackstone Valley Polar Express, the investor has some good news.
“We are 1,000 percent committed to making sure that the Polar Express experience only gets bigger, better, and more accessible each year and have been working closely with Bob Billington and his staff at the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council to make sure everything goes smoothly for all their events in the upcoming years,” Bono said.
Last season, Bono said BSRC treated a 1st-grade class from the Woonsocket public school system to a Polar Express ride.
And in February, Bono went under contract to purchase a home on Harris Avenue.
“I think Woonsocket is a great city, obviously, and I am making a lot of new friends,” he said.
For employees at the Heritage Corridor, meanwhile, relocation provided opportunity, with a new office that lands in the geographic center of the area that organization serves.
“We were going to lose our space here, and when we realized we were going to have to find some other space, we started measuring,” said BHC Executive Director Charlene Perkins Cutler. “It makes it easier for everyone because we’re closer to everything.”
Established in 1986 by Congress as a means to preserve and interpret the nationally significant historic, cultural and natural resources of the Blackstone River Valley, the shortened “BHC” was originally known as the John H. Chafee Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor.
The organization was first headquartered in Uxbridge, Mass., where it began managing operations in the Blackstone Corridor on behalf of the former federal commission. They moved to Woonsocket and established residence in the city’s historic downtown depot in the late 1990s.
Perkins Cutler was named executive director in 2014, the same year the organization became an official nonprofit.
It was also the year that President Obama signed the legislation establishing the Blackstone River Valley National Historical Park, as part of the national park system and extended BHC’s authorization through the end of Fiscal Year 2021.
The organization will serve as the Nation Park’s primary partner in the region.
“We thought it made sense if we were going to be a part of the new national park system, it would help to be at the geographic center of the corridor,” said Cutler Perkins. “We have space that’s available for them to use,” she said, adding that Whitinsville could be the group’s northern office. “They’re looking at a lot of different options and it makes sense for them to have a north office and a south office.”
“We are 1,000 percent committed to making sure that the Polar Express experience only gets bigger, better, and more accessible each year and have been working closely with Bob Billington and his staff at the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council to make sure everything goes smoothly for all their events in the upcoming years,” Bono said.
Last season, Bono said BSRC treated a 1st-grade class from the Woonsocket public school system to a Polar Express ride.
And in February, Bono went under contract to purchase a home on Harris Avenue.
“I think Woonsocket is a great city, obviously, and I am making a lot of new friends,” he said.
For employees at the Heritage Corridor, meanwhile, relocation provided opportunity, with a new office that lands in the geographic center of the area that organization serves.
“We were going to lose our space here, and when we realized we were going to have to find some other space, we started measuring,” said BHC Executive Director Charlene Perkins Cutler. “It makes it easier for everyone because we’re closer to everything.”
Established in 1986 by Congress as a means to preserve and interpret the nationally significant historic, cultural and natural resources of the Blackstone River Valley, the shortened “BHC” was originally known as the John H. Chafee Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor.
The organization was first headquartered in Uxbridge, Mass., where it began managing operations in the Blackstone Corridor on behalf of the former federal commission. They moved to Woonsocket and established residence in the city’s historic downtown depot in the late 1990s.
Perkins Cutler was named executive director in 2014, the same year the organization became an official nonprofit.
It was also the year that President Obama signed the legislation establishing the Blackstone River Valley National Historical Park, as part of the national park system and extended BHC’s authorization through the end of Fiscal Year 2021.
The organization will serve as the Nation Park’s primary partner in the region.
“We thought it made sense if we were going to be a part of the new national park system, it would help to be at the geographic center of the corridor,” said Cutler Perkins. “We have space that’s available for them to use,” she said, adding that Whitinsville could be the group’s northern office. “They’re looking at a lot of different options and it makes sense for them to have a north office and a south office.”
BHC’s small staff of just a half dozen employees are now eagerly anticipating the move, scheduled for May 1.
“We had a great situation being here, but this project is going to help the local economy,” said Marketing Director Bonnie Combs.
The executive director said the move will come with no changes to BHC’s activities in the area.
“It’s just 11 miles up the road,” she said. “It just puts us in the middle, and I think that’s important.”
BHC’s new home is inside a rehabilitated former mill building alongside the Blackstone Valley Chamber of Commerce. The staff will hold an open house at the building at 870 Linwood Ave. on Wednesday, June 15, from 4 to 7 p.m. Source: SANDY SEOANE, Valley Breeze Staff Writer

Earth Day cleanup in Burrillville Saturday

Posted by Wayne G. Barber

The Burrillville Parks and Recreation Department along with the Public Works Department and the Burrillville Lions Club will hold their annual Earth Day Cleanup on Saturday, April 23, from 9 to 1 p.m., rain or shine.
Coffee, donuts, T-shirts, trash bags and gloves will be provided to all participants. All participants will receive a raffle ticket for a chance to win one of many prizes. Kick-off will begins at 8:30 a.m. at the Burrillville Town Garage. The event is eligible for community service hours, and certificates will be printed on site.
Can’t make the event but still want to cleanup your neighborhood or favorite park? The town we will work with you to arrange pickup of supplies for your cleanup. Contact Andrea Hall at 401-568-9470 or ahall@burrillville.org for more information or to sign up.

Bears are out in Foster, Rhode Island

Posted by Wayne G. Barber

 

This is what Gordon Rogers found on fresh dirt job site today, Thanks for sharing

Foster April 14, 2016 Town Coucil Meeting

The 1762 Drought Follows a Cold, Late Spring

Posted by Wayne G. Barber

Still think we should commit to 980,000 gallons of water per day for another Power Plant ?

Last year in August you could walk across the Blackstone River at River Falls in Woonsocket. Indian folklore claims a common occurrence and the Ocean State power plant only 5 miles away is already tapping the Blackstone for a water source and is half the size of this new Power Plant proposal.

A cold April was a prelude to one the 1762 drought, one of the worst in the history of New England.

It his Eastern Massachusetts hardest, according to Sidney Perley, in his classic 1891 book Historic Storms of New England: Its Gales, Hurricanes, Tornadoes, Showers With Thunder and Lightning.
The drought extended to the southern colonies. George Washington, in a letter dated June 20, 1762, complained about it:

We have had one of the most severe Droughts in these parts that ever was known and without a speedy Interposition of Providence (in sending us moderate and refreshing Rains to Molifie and soften the Earth) we shall not make one oz of Tobacco this year. Our Plants in spite of all our efforts to the contrary are just destroyed, and our grain is absolutely perishing, how it may be in other parts of the Country I can not postively [sic] say, yet I have heard much complaining.

The 1762 Drought

In New England, the weather didn’t warm up until late, and it barely rained at all. The wells were drained, the grass dried up, vegetation scorched.
On July 7, a fast was held in Falmouth (now Portland) on account of the drought, but hardly anyone went because they were busy putting out the fires that had broken out.
Fasts and prayer meetings were held in throughout the region, asking God to avert the dreadful evil. On July 24, a cloudburst with thunder and lightning brought relief to Dorchester, but only to Dorchester (now part of Boston). The fires continued, the earth got drier and the vegetation died. By August 1, farmers thought the crops would fail completely.
And then at the end of July, wrote Perley, "A bounteous rain gladdened the earth." It rained again on August 13 and August 16. Three days later, a great rain fell on New England, and from that time on there was no reason to complain about the drought.
The crops were skimpy, however, and hay was so scarce it sold for four times its normal price the next winter. Grain and hay had to be imported from England. Many farmers slaughtered their cows because they couldn't afford the price of hay.
Farmers’ diaries tell the story of the terrible summer when the earth turned to dust.
Jeremiah Weare of York, Maine, called it the 'dry year' and noted hay was very scarce and dear, about $16 to $20 a ton.
Thomas Smith, a farmer in Portland, Maine, described the drought as a "melancholy dry time."” All are now looking for an absolute famine," he wrote. (Smith was a bit of a pessimist.)
For the next 19 days, Smith simply recorded the weather as fair. After the bounteous rain on Aug. 19, he no longer lamented the ‘sore and amazing’ drought.
In Danvers, Mass., it didn't rain until Sept. 22.

Glocester contain many of Rhode Island’s natural resources – a significant reason that so many people have chosen to live in those rural towns. The George Washington Management Area, Casimir Pulaski Memorial State Park, the Buck Hill Management Area, and the Black Hut Management Area are all in the immediate vicinity. There are also in the immediate vicinity numerous pristine bodies of water including Wilson’s Reservoir, Wakefield Pond, Round Lake, Wallum Lake, Pascoag Reservoir/Echo Lake, Pulaski Pond, Bowdish Reservoir and Lake Washington. The Feistein summer camp for city children at the top of Buck Hill will refuse to send children to a harmful area and the Boy Scout / Cub Scout camp on Wakefield Pond would probably do the same.
“To put these natural resources at risk by siting a colossal power plant in the middle of them would be unconscionable,” Wayne G. Barber President of the National Wild Turkey Federartion, Author, Host of the award winning radio program Outdoor Scene wrote.

DEM AND ARBOR DAY FOUNDATION TEAM UP TO HELP HOMEOWNERS SAVE ENERGY, MONEY WITH FREE TREE PROGRAM

Posted by Wayne G. Barber

The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) and the Arbor Day Foundation are teaming up to give away 1,000 trees this spring; the Energy-Saving Trees Program helps homeowners conserve energy, reduce utility costs, and beautify their neighborhood.

"We're happy to partner with the Arbor Day Foundation again this year to encourage homeowners to "green" their properties and promote a healthier environment," said DEM Director Janet Coit. "Trees play an important role in cooling our streets and homes, filtering our air, and reducing stormwater pollution. I hope Rhode Islanders will take advantage of this opportunity to plant a tree with their families and watch it grow; it will help with household expenses and benefit our environment for generations to come."

The trees are approximately four to six feet tall and will be distributed in three-gallon containers for easy transport. The RI Tree Council will provide planting and care instruction to homeowners - as well as guidance on how to maximize energy-savings. When planted properly, a single mature tree can save $30 annually in heating and cooling costs.

Now in its second season, the Energy Saving Trees Program has resulted in more than 800 trees being planted across the state. Registration opens Monday, March 28 and is required in order to reserve a tree. For more information and/or to register for the program, visit www.arborday.org/RIDEM. Trees can be picked up during one of the following pick-up events:

• Saturday, April 16 (9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.): Westerly Public Library, 44 Broad Street, Westerly
• Saturday, April 23 (9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.): Portsmouth Public Library, 2658 East Main Road, Portsmouth
• Saturday, May 7 (12:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.): Knight Memorial Library, 275 Elmwood Avenue, Providence
• Saturday, May 14 (9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.): Woonsocket Public Library, 303 Clinton Street, Woonsocket

For more information on DEM's programs and divisions, visit www.dem.ri.gov or follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/RhodeIslandDEM or via Twitter (@RhodeIslandDEM).

Maryland To Become First State To Ban Bee-Killing Pesticides

Maryland To Become First State To Ban Bee-Killing Pesticides: Maryland is about to become the first state in the nation to pass strict restrictions on bee killing pesticides. Maryland lost more than 60% of its hives last year, each hive containing up to 20,000 bee's  Round Up is just one of the main products on the market.