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Monthly Cleanups

In 2022, the EWPA Board instituted monthly maintenance activities. These included the May seeding of the infiltration area; the July removal of invasive loosestrife from the salt marsh; and cleanups of the Park, the infiltration area, the boat ramp and the rotary.

Some of What We Did In 2022 with Your Help

Your support helps us to protect and conserve Stillhouse Cove Salt Marsh and Park, our local environmental treasure.

Each year we raise funds to maintain, and improve Stillhouse Cove Salt Marsh and Park to keep it a sustainable, clean, beautiful, and safe waterfront.
Please give today.

Please Support Us

Maintained and improved the Stillhouse Cove Palmeri Rose Garden.

Members of the board and dedicated volunteers worked throughout the growing season to maintain the park, salt march, rotary, and storm water area.

Worked with horticulturist Nick Cokonis to prepare the site in early Spring and educate the board and volunteers on site preparation.

Supported STEM students discovering sea creatures in Stillhouse Cove.

Held two clean-ups that attracted more than 200 volunteers that removed trash from around the cove.

We facilitated installation and landscaping for a sculpture, The End of the Line, made from old trolley track removed from Narragansett Boulevard.

Each year, we need to raise funds to sustain improvements the park and salt marsh. Join us in this neighborhood effort. Help us to keep Stillhouse Cove the clean, beautiful, and safe waterfront park it has become.

Please help to conserve Stillhouse Cove Salt Marsh and Park with your donation today.

Sittin’ On A Bench On the Bay

By Trent Batson
May 27, 2022

Years ago, one of our daughters took up residence on Ocean Avenue and I, a retired university professor, had the privilege of walking her dog at Stillhouse Cove when she and her husband were at work.  I loved the Cove as did Calypso, the dog.  

More recently, I’ve had another privilege — serving on the Board of the Edgewood Waterfront Preservation Association that maintains Stillhouse Cove.  I’ve stepped down from the Board now but wanted to continue to contribute to the EWPA in some way.  My current research work is about human evolution and climate change — and, in these blogs, I’ll write about how those two relate to the good work at Stillhouse Cove.

I am launching, with the support of the EWPA Board, a monthly series of blogs about Stillhouse Cove and resilience work as climate change presents ever greater challenges to that work.  The EWPA has done model work on resilience in the Cove and this blog series celebrates that work while also describing the larger context of how humanity is dealing with the climate crisis.  

What happens at Stillhouse Cove is a microcosm of shorelines around the world and so is well worth following.  

Musing on the Cove

You can sit on a bench in Stillhouse Cove in Pawtuxet, Rhode Island, facing east, looking out over the bay, and watch the dawn break.  Many do.  Sometimes, in the rain.  I told my granddaughter, when fog obscured the far shore, that the East Bay part of Rhode Island had floated away.  

As you sit, song sparrows may sing or, in season, you may hear redwing blackbirds.  You might see an Osprey bank over the water — or seagulls or cormorants — and geese or ducks feeding on the shoreline.  

The sun reflecting off the Bay glitters.  Dogs, walking their owners, sniff on by.  Runners, silent on their feet, ghost past.  Cars are surprisingly quiet as drivers slowly take in the scene.  

In season, the sight of sailboats and “stinkpots” at the Yacht Club adds a sense of elegance and adventure. 

Out in the channel, large freighters slip on down the bay, or churn up the Bay, heading for the Port of Providence.

And the Bay water, ever moving, full of life, remains unconcerned.

One can slip out of time sitting on that bench.  

May Site Committee Work a Big Success: Infiltration Area Seeded!

The Site Committee, including board members and volunteers, spent a productive morning seeding the infiltration area damaged over the winter. 

The infiltration area acts as a natural filter for storm water that flows into the bay. Catching bacteria and other organisms and larger items like trash before the water flows into Stillhouse Cove, this important feature protects the cove from bacterial or other blooms as well as from trash and plastics. 

Thanks to the volunteers and board members that showed up to do this important work.

Interested in volunteering? Join us! 

Some of What We Did In 2021 with Your Help

Your support helps us to protect and conserve Stillhouse Cove Salt Marsh and Park, our local environmental treasure.

Each year we raise $10,000 to maintain, and improve Stillhouse Cove Salt Marsh and Park to keep it a sustainable, clean, beautiful, and safe waterfront.
Please give today.

Please Support Us | Volunteer with Us

Selected plants including “bee and polinator” friendly plants like this unique variety of hydrangia.

Protected the marsh and conservation area at Stillhouse by treating and removing invasive weeds and seedlings.

Improved gardens and the rotary with native plants and grasses that withstand drought and attract bees.

Maintained gardens with new plants and moving others to better locations.

Hosted two successful clean-ups that removed trash from around the cove.

Installed new “coir logs”to protect the salt marsh and park from erosion and storm damage. These “logs” were installed at the base of the slope in the salt march to help the cove stay stable and healthy.

Please help to conserve Stillhouse Cove Salt Marsh and Park with your donation today.

October 26, 2021
We have new “coir logs”! Thanks to Ray and Wenley!

Coir logs perform an important function in the cove. Made to control erosion and protect the cove in the event of a significant storm, these “logs” help the cove stay stable and healthy. 

And Ray and Wenley? Ray Mooney and Wenley Ferguson have been supporters of the EWPA for many years, adding expertise and helping out in many ways and lately heling in acquiring and installing coir logs in the cove. 

This spring Ray saw logs posted on a social media site for a price substantially below what we have spent for similar items in the past. Given the Covid-19 situation and the difficulty of transporting them to Rhode Island, we passed on these items this spring.  However, Ray noticed last week that they were still available. He drove to New Hampshire with his trailer and brought 15 logs back.  

Wenley is lending her expertise in how these should be installed to gain the greatest benefit from them. She will advise the landscaping company that will be installing them. 

The work of EWPA couldn’t happen without the assistance of such important friends of EWPA and we thank them for their generous and important efforts. 

Thanks Ray and Wenley!! 

October 2nd: Thwarting the pernicious pear (and other invasive growth).

On Saturday, October 2, 2021 Board Members from the EWPA worked in the early morning sun to remove invasive growth from the cove. This removal, done once per year, allows the naturally occurring growth room to thrive. The removal included a surprising number of young “pear” trees, that, according to understanding, are a variety that never actually produce pears!!

Board Members Lynn, Richard and Joe deep in the marsh removing invasive growth
Board President Barbara applying solution to invasive to inhibit regrowth.
Board Members Lynn and Joe removing invasive growth from the cove.

Stem Learning at Stillhouse Cove

By DANIEL A. KITTREDGE (CRANSTON HERALD)

Read this story using the link below

Summer and science?

It might not be the combination most students have in mind when the school year ends. But for students in the STEM Advantage program, the two went hand-in-hand over the past several weeks.

“You’ve got to be precise with what you do. You’ve got to double check everything, triple check, test things out … One thing about learning is that you just have to do trial and error,” Andy Wu, an incoming 10th-grader at Cranston High School East, said while demonstrating a series of circuit experiments last week at Park View Middle School…

Read about this on Cranston Herald Online https://cranstononline.com/stories/summer-of-stem-through-six-week-program-students-focus-on-fighting-pollution-finding-potential,164328

The “End of the Line”

EWPA has hosted this local historic and art project. Donating on this page supports continued maintenance of the site. If you would like to donate to support the work of EWPA please visit http://stillhousecove.org/donate/

2017 Removal of tracks from Narragansett Blvd.

The sculpture and historic marker at the corner of Narragansett Boulevard and Sefton Drive stand at the precise terminus of the former ‘Eddy Street – Edgewood’ streetcar line.  The site commemorates the 1890s trolley routes that transformed Edgewood from farmland and recreation area into the neighborhood we know today.  

After Filmmaker David A. Goldenberg witnessed the removal of the rails from the Boulevard in 2017, he retrieved some pieces and asked sculptor David Karoff to weld them into a monument.  Then, using a myriad of archival sources, Goldenberg produced a documentary film: End of the Line: The Tracks That Shaped Our RI Streetcar Suburb.  In the documentary, local voice-over artists recreated period descriptions of the routes that traversed our neighborhood, as well as accident reports, realty advertisements, and transport procedures. A link to the film is provided below.

It was critical to connect the project with the waterfront and public park in a site sensitive manner and the Edgewood Waterfront Preservation Association (EWPA) partnered with Goldenberg and Karoff on the promotion, siting, design, and landscaping of the “End of The Line” project and played a key role in completing it. As with all its preservation efforts, the EWPA also coordinated with the City of Cranston and local representatives. EWPA also provided the funding, with some help from donors, to complete the project. The site is located next to another EWPA project – the Stormwater Bioretention Area.

The unveiling of the Trolley Site on December 4, 2022.

Mason Dennis Conte built the base and created the brick surround.  Community members supported the project with materials and financial contributions.   

The sculpture, made from rails from the former trolley line, is an interesting historical artifact that brings together art and history along a busy promenade within sight of historic Stillhouse Cove.  This effort was consistent with EWPA’s mission to educate the community and to protect and preserve publicly-owned property within the waterfront area. 

The “END OF THE LINE” historic marker

Please send your tax-deductible contributions to EWPA (Edgewood Waterfront Preservation Association) 1438 Narragansett Blvd. Cranston RI 02905 and mark checks “trolley memorial” or select the link below

Volunteer with Us

A Chance to Help Preserve Stillhouse Cove.
EWPA is an all volunteer organization. Come join us.

APPLY HERE

Stillhouse Cove park and salt marsh is a beautiful gathering spot maintained by the EWPA with volunteer help. We are always looking for volunteers and also a limited number people to join the Board of Directors of the EWPA, a non-profit. 

The EWPA organizes cleanups, plantings, and removing invasive plants among other volunteer work. There are also organizational tasks including communications and other office duties.

Being a volunteer with the EWPA is a way to not only help maintain Stillhouse Cove, but to get involved in environmental advocacy in Rhode Island.

Please complete the volunteer form to let us know your interest in joining us and becoming part of our volunteers.

APPLY HERE

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