A delay in receiving approval by the state for a comprehensive permit to remove a root mass of invasive plants called phragmites from Buckeye Brook – which are causing elevated water levels in Warwick Pond and flooding the back yards of some pond abutting property owners – has also left the financial feasibility of the project up in the air.

The history of the blockage in the brook is extensive, but for purposes of this article the important date to recall was April 2, when the Warwick City Council approved a $127,000 bid from EA Engineering Science & Tech to conduct further study into what would need to be done to address the rising water levels in the pond.

That study, according to testimony given by Warwick DPW Engineering Program Manager Eric Hindinger during Monday night’s meeting, concluded that removal of a mass of phragmites would be necessary to re-open the channel that connects the southwestern portion of Warwick Pond to Buckeye Brook, which would then hopefully allow the water levels to decrease to a natural level.

However, approval through a wetlands alteration permit would be required from the state Department of Environmental Management before any such work could be conducted. EA Engineering, on behalf of the city, was to be responsible for submitting this permit to the state. Such a permit is reportedly the most difficult to obtain, as it involves a high amount of scrutiny and variables pertaining to sensitive environmental factors.

While things were going smoothly and Hindinger praised EA for getting the permit together quickly, in August the permit application got returned by DEM on the grounds that they required more clarification. That hold-up required EA to spend more time on the permit, and they just finalized the answers to those inquiries this past Friday, Hindinger said.

“We needed really a perfect path to go through to get this to happen in a timely fashion so that we could get it done before we lost our funding source,” Hindinger said.

However, Hindinger said that it is now too late in the year for a contractor to be found to do the actual removal work in the brook, meaning that the city will not be able to utilize available grant funding from the Community Development Block Grants source – as they expire in January of 2019. Hindinger estimated the cost of the project to be in the range of $850,000. The city is not on the hook for the permit application or the consulting cost approved back in April, as those can be covered by CBG funds.

Hindinger said that DPW would begin looking for grants through DEM and other sources to potentially fund some of the project, but that they still need to receive the wetlands alteration permit since many of the grants require a project to be lined up and “ready to go” in order to be eligible for the award.

As the permit was submitted by EA in June, Hindinger said there were slim chances the project could be completed this year, and that this was realized from the beginning of the process.

“I think we knew we were under the gun starting the project before it even started. We knew everything had to go perfectly smooth,” he said. “Even if we had gotten comments back in the beginning of August, that process of acquiring a consultant to do the actual construction would have had to have been perfect with no glitches whatsoever. We knew with the whole process, we were behind the eight ball.”

Still, for stakeholders on the pond, this does not make the realization that remediation of the phragmites problem is still potentially years away any easier to swallow.

“It’s disappointing and it’s frustrating, because the people on Warwick Pond are suffering with the conditions of flooding. People are really suffering. They can’t go in their back yards,” said Philip D’Ercole, facilitator for Friends of Warwick Ponds. “I sent the first email out in December of 2015 with pictures of the flooding on Lakeshore Drive with the question ‘What is going on here?’ It’s now almost the end of 2018, and we still have a flooding issue…We’re disappointed that we’re not making progress quick enough.”

City Council President Steve Merolla proposed that DPW – which has gone through significant turnover in the past year, with longtime director Dave Picozzi retiring, his replacement Rick Crenca retiring and the resignation of city engineer Eric Earls, who was the point person for this project when the April bid was approved – reach out to the council and stakeholders for support to help the project progress.

“I think that there are a lot of people out there rooting for you and willing to help you in any way that they can,” Merolla said. “I think it would be helpful at some point to maybe schedule another meeting with those constituents and council members from that area to see if there’s anything we can do to help.”