The Narragansett Bay region was once a network of interconnected rivers and streams that snaked through the headlands and down to the salt water of Narragansett Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. The free-flowing water created a landscape connecting forest to riparian zone to the rivers and ultimately to the sea. Millions of migratory fish, such as River Herring (Alewife and Blueback Herring), American Shad, and American Eel, followed the saltwater to the freshwater and back through their life cycle.

Over the last 400 years, man-made barriers, such as dams, tide gates, levees, and culverts have been built to support agriculture, industry, infrastructure, and recreation. These barriers provided the energy that powered the industrial revolution, allowed cities to be built on riparian floodplains, and allowed roads for accessible travel through the region. However, these barriers have had negative, long-lasting impacts to the local ecology. Dams and undersized culverts alter the ecology through impacts to stream velocity, nutrient transport, sediment transport, reduced or completely prevented organism passage, and exclusion of migratory fish to historic breeding grounds, and more. Nearer to the coasts, tide gates or undersized culverts limit tidal access to salt marsh, which reduces sediment available for marsh surface accretion and ultimately contributes to salt marsh subsidence.

Approximately 1,000 dams dot the region, and most of them no longer serve their original purposes in powering mills, supplying water, or providing recreational space for the community. Additionally, over 3,000 culverts occur unseen under roadways, and many were not designed in ways that support organism passage or provide resilience to large storm events. Overall, many of these barriers have outlived their usefulness, fallen into disrepair, and/or are safety hazards to those who live around them. Removing such barriers can provide many regional benefits towards flood risk reduction, water quality improvements, and ecosystem resiliency, to name a few.

While this is a large undertaking, the past few decades have seen a massive movement nationally, and here in New England, towards dam removal and reconnecting the nation's waterways. Collaborative work throughout the Narragansett Bay region has focused on reconnecting the system by removing barriers and improving connections between the landscape, the freshwater, and the saltwater. Regional efforts to improve aquatic connectivity have included community outreach, assessment and prioritization of projects, barrier removals, and new convening opportunities, such as today’s event. Today, we will discuss all the steps between planning and passage, explore case studies linking these projects to other initiatives, and identify mechanisms to implement robust solutions towards our most pressing challenges.