City Council - Regular Meeting

Being here, I know that this is a big topic of discussion for people, particularly in the hazard road area. We're going to have a little presentation and a couple of presentations, and then we'll have the public speak. So first of all, I'd like to ask, could we please just stand for the Pledge of Allegiance? Thank you. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you.

Okay, so we're going to be starting it off with Teresa.

Where is Teresa? There you are.

Oh, and I just want to say David Carlin, of course, he's a third ward representative. He will be here. He's running a little bit late as well. So it's a busy night. Thank you.

Teresa Crean, Great Thank you chair safely and chair conklin my name is Teresa cream, I am the director of resilience and sustainability for the city of newport. Teresa Crean, And we really appreciate everybody taking the time out of their schedules on a beautiful evening to be here tonight to talk about hazard road. Teresa Crean, Due to the frequent flooding and the fragile ecology. of the surrounding marsh, the City of Newport selected Hazard Road to explore potential long-term strategies to improve roadway resilience and maintain access along the section of roadway connecting Wickham Road and Ruggles Avenue to Ocean Drive. The City is working with project partner Save the Bay and Wenly Ferguson from Save the Bay is here tonight. to kick off this initial phase of the project, which focuses on existing conditions and data collection. To date, no grant funds or municipal funds have been spent on this effort. This joint City Council Environment and Energy Commission workshop will provide the City Council and the EEC an overview and the public, excuse me, of why this project was selected and will provide an opportunity for residents and property owners to share thoughts, concerns, and ideas as part of the data collection process. As immediate abutters, input, and for the general public, input is important to us, and we welcome your ideas for preserving the scenic roadway and wildlife hotspot in the community while we work to improve its long-term resilience and protect the surrounding natural environment. I want to also orient you to the resources that we have in the room tonight. We have several maps that you'll see in the slide presentation. We also have sticky notes and pens, and we want to welcome everyone to write down any knowledge, thoughts, comments, opinions that you have related to this project. This is really meant to be inclusive. We really want to hear what you have to say, and we want to share the knowledge that we've pulled together so far in making sense of what the future of this area of the city will look like. so with that we have a short slide presentation i'm going to hand it over to city planner hayden mcdermott hayden will then hand it over to resilience planner christina truett and then i'll wrap us up and then we'll answer any questions that the commission the council and the commission have and then they can facilitate the public input from there great thank you hayden take it away hi everyone thanks for coming my name is hayden i'm a

As Teresa said, I'm a planner with the City Planning Department, and I'm going to go over a brief history of Goosenet Cove and Hazard Road and previous restoration work. All right, I'm sure everyone here today knows where Hazard Road is, but to orient us, we're looking at Hazard Road is between Wickham Road by the high school and connects to Ocean Ave by Hazard slash Gooseberry Beach. From pictures and maps that we're going to use today, We'll be referencing a few points here. Today we're looking at about a quarter mile segment of Hazard Road that's one way. It's bounded by a north gate, a southern gate, and we'll reference a culvert that's in the midsection. So, Hazard Road and Gooseneck Cove history. Human activity has impacted the water flow and health of the salt marsh here for 150 years. Around 1870, the about 500 foot natural Mouth of Gooseneck Cove was filled in for the construction of Ocean Ave. And the Greenbridge area was constructed with two undersized culverts, which severely restricted the tidal flow. About 20 years later, Hazard Road was plotted with a number of roads in the area during the height of construction of the Gilded Age summer cottages along Ocean Drive. Hazard Road was constructed across marsh peat decaying spongy plant material, which contributed to roads settling and flooding a century later. Around 1942, the central dam here is reconstructed. It's unknown what the original date of the dam was before that, but it further restricted flow between the upland freshwater and southern saltwater in the middle of the marsh basin. So these impacts over a century of tidal restrictions. So the three water flow restrictions reduced saltwater flow into the cove, creating a brackish, which is less salty, more freshwater, warmer environment. The reduced salinity and prolonged flooding caused the loss of the native salt marsh plants and reduction of the natural marsh area. The flooding caused the marsh to sink, releasing excess nutrients in the water, which led to acres of algal blooms. Fish and aquatic animals can no longer move freely due to these obstructions, but also the algal blooms reduce the oxygen available in the water to fish. And then you'll see this plant in every kind of roadside or stormwater detention ditch. The invasive plant Phragmites, it loves brackish and more freshwater areas, and it's spread due to the reduced salinity of the marsh. So Hazard Road used to experience a lot more severe flooding than we had today. So these are images from 2008. In the early 2000s, Hazard Row was actually closed to vehicle access for years due to persistent flooding, which was caused by two primary factors. Initial 1880s construction on top of the marsh peat, which settled over time. and the tidal restrictions caused prolonged periods of flooding. Here we can see the northern area. Near the northern gate, this dark area, it was experiencing some flooding. And then in here, just above the southern gate, this area had a lot of standing water and is still the area that floods the most today. Here are some images taken by Save the Bay in the early 2000s. This one was from 2003 and looks towards the northern entrance the gate would be about here today and experience regular flooding and here's another high tide image looking again towards where the northern gate is today um which was experiencing high tide flooding prior to being raised so past environmental restoration work um First to acknowledge in the 60s, the Vanderbilts gifted the eastern parcel on the eastern side of Hazard Road to the Audubon Society of Rhode Island, and they made it into a great birding and wildlife hobbyist attraction and made it beloved by the community. Furthermore, in the 90s, Save the Bay identified Gooseneck Cove as a candidate for salt marsh restoration based on the impacts they were seeing over the many decades. At this point, the central dam in the middle of The Gooseneck Cove had been disrepair for years, hazard roads, undersized culvert had failed, and a century of tidal flow restrictions had impacted marsh health. In the early 2000s, there was a series of tidal flow restoration studies and feasibility studies by Save the Bay, the City of Newport, and federal partners, NOAA and Natural Resource Conservation Service, meant to restore the area in 2007. Aquinnick Island Land Trust joined the partners in this restoration work and also established a conservation easement over the western side of the Ea Cove and Ballard Park. And then that brings us to the significant $1.1 million restoration project in 2009 where the road was raised and significant flooding was mitigated. So in 2009, the city and its partners conducted a $1.1 million restoration project primarily a grant from federal agencies with state and local match amounts from CRMC, RIDOT, the City and Aquinnah-Guyland Land Trust. The restoration work included elevating Hazard Road, installing a much more extended, I think, three-foot by four-foot culvert under the road to reduce flooding and improve the tidal flow, installation of three new culverts under Ocean Avenue, and also removal of the central dam. So here we have in March 2009, Eina looking south. This area is about where the culvert is, the layout of the road. Here we have the new enlarged culvert being installed. Here is by the southern gate facing north, the road being raised. This is the area where the base elevation of the road had to be raised the most due to significant flooding. And Christina.

Hello, everybody. Christina Truitt jumping in.

Thank you.

OK. So as Hayden just mentioned, we have 2010, after the 29 restoration, the road is raised. We have a wider culvert installed, which you can see on the map right here. The road is now going in a one-way direction. towards that way and the road with road width is reduced to 12 feet with two wider passing passing areas around here and here which are widened to 24. additionally the city passed an ordinance that closes the road from december 1st to march 31st annually due to the seasonal flooding um you can also see our post-construction public access enhancement we have some educational signage there for wildlife and this is where we are today with our road this is in 2026 on the left we have a sunny day with no water covering the road and on the right we have a king tide with water covering the road. So some of the challenges today that Hazard Road is facing, as it's a low-lying coastal infrastructure, it's still vulnerable to storm surge, king tides, and sunny day flooding, which king tides, if you aren't aware, are basically a high tide that's impacted by a new or full moon and gravitational pulls. vulnerable to sea level rise, erosion, and human safety concerns. Each of these maps also identify more in detail. If you'd like to take a chance at the end to come up and look through each of those maps, they detail out some of the storm surge and some of the sea level rise as well. So additionally where we kind of, where the project has been guided in terms of its importance for addressing the vulnerabilities, the 2017 Tree and Open Space Master Plan identified Gooseneck Cove as a very vulnerable open space sensitive area and requested to undertake a more detailed study of the open space That considers ecology as well as future access with a note that the current road will be underwater at high tide with one foot of sea level rise projected very soon in 2035 to 2040. So this is from, again, our 2017 Tree and Open Space Plan. You can see Gooseneck Cove organized here in our exposed assets and inundation progression for sea level rise, one to two foot, three foot, and five foot. We also have Hazard Road identified in the adopted 2025 Regional Hazard Mitigation Flood Management Plan. Hazard Road is located here as one of our flood prone streets and infrastructure to develop mitigation actions for. And then we will jump into the grant. I will pass it over to Teresa.

Great. Thank you, Christina. Thank you, Hayden. Yes, sorry. Great. So in January, we had an opportunity to secure some funding from the Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank. in their Community Project Assistance Fund. And that fund was set up to support design, feasibility analysis, needs assessment, strategic planning, and engineering projects that advance community resilience and enhance public infrastructure with a focus on coastal flooding. So after talking internally, reviewing the plans that we have that identified Hazard Road as an area of interest, we put forward a grant proposal to get funding to explore Long term resilience along this roadway and in this area, so this grant looks to seeks to reduce flood risk to people and infrastructure. Further restored tidal flow to the salt marsh enhance fish and wildlife habitat and model nature based adaptation strategy. And most importantly, it's exploring reconfiguration of the road. There is no movement or plan right now to reconfigure the road. This is the starting point that we're at today with this project to discuss and collect information, collect knowledge from all of you to determine how we move forward through this process. So we developed a scope of work that starts with task one is evaluating the existing conditions. So we're all here tonight with posters and information and this slide presentation that shares with you what we know about this area. And we hope to move into task number two, data collection, with your input tonight providing us with additional data of additional information that we can learn from you and pull that into the narrative that we pull together for this project. We also then, task three, we outlined in the grant as public engagement. But as you can see tonight, public engagement is key, critical throughout this entire project. But we did put a placeholder in that in the grant application to ensure the funder, assure the funder that we will ensure continual public engagement throughout this process. Tasks four and five, we're not even close to starting tasks four and five. Task four is concept design and alternatives analysis, and task five is preliminary design and cost estimate. We need to get through tasks one, two, and three before we can move on to tasks four and five. So while we've crossed out task number one, evaluate existing conditions, you all may have knowledge that you can provide to us to feed into the existing conditions analysis. And then data collection, we've not only included this meeting to received information and knowledge from you all, but we've also wanted to talk about what other data do we need? What do we need to measure in this area to make informed decisions in the future to empower project scoping and other decision making for this project? I don't mean to be blocking you, Councilor Spice. There may be water level loggers or sensors that we put out in the marsh to better understand what the real water levels look like. How frequently is the road inundated during those months where the gate is not closed? For us to get more specificity on what the conditions are and when the road is passable to vehicles, when it's not, what may be some other conflicts that we may not know about yet. could be monitored with sensors or some type of instrumentation or a monitoring program with different partners. There's also a way for us to assess visitation numbers using cell phone data. This has been used in other places and the University of Rhode Island has some researchers who have used that for like tourism planning and other types of visitation assessments to understand who is using the space from cell phone data. So tonight we're here to gather community input, understand questions and concerns from abutters, from interested residents, from frequenters of this wonderful space. And we have our partners from Save the Bay here to Way in and share any information that they have from past work in gooseneck cove with us and with that I would like to thank everybody for their. attention to this hayden already showed you this photo of the hazard road looking South here's the area that widens and the informational sign. And this was a couple months ago, May 27th on a sunny day. And this was the road at King Tide, June 14th, 2026, 8.52 p.m., has the same view, Hazard Road looking south. This is a photo that was taken and uploaded into a program called My Coast, where we have through statewide an opportunity for residents of all 39 cities and towns to upload photos of coastal flooding and storm damage in real time. So we have these records, we have this evidence of flooding, and really we're here tonight to hear from the Environment and Energy Commission, the City Council, of any questions that you have about this. I'll just reiterate, we have not spent one dime of the grant money that's been awarded, and we are at the starting point to determine what the path forward looks like for this project. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Teresa. Thank you. I also, tonight, I'd like to thank the Energy and Environment Commission for being here. If you'd all like to just introduce yourselves, that would be great. Thank you.

Sure. I'm happy to start. I'm the chair of the Energy and Environment Commission. I'm Emily Conklin.

I am Vice Chair Avery Robertson. Secretary Christina Gorin.

DeeDee Florillard.

And Andy Bjork.

Thank you. Of course, we have Mike Carullo, acting city manager, and Stephanie Smyth, Gina Politano, myself. So I just have a question. So if the public is going to participate in this, they would participate through the MyCoast website. Is that right? They would participate through the MyCoast website? Is that my understanding? When you want input from the public, how would they do that?

We don't have a portal set up for getting photos into it, but MyCoast is set up to accept photographs that people take in the field.

So we don't, we can take public comment however.

Okay, so it's through photographs.

That's what MyCoast is used for, yeah.

Okay, thank you.

There's some additional information regarding MiCoast in the informational packet as well.

Thank you. What is your timeline on this getting community input? Is there?

We haven't established a time frame at this time. We wanted to introduce the project first, understand what questions and concerns or ideas that the public has across the city to determine what the project schedule looks like before we consider what resources are needed and how we scope the rest of the project.

So this might seem like a silly question, but did the road sink or is it that the water is just getting higher?

I'm going to, well, I don't, we know that sea level rise has increased 10 inches since 1970 based on the Newport tide gauge at the Naval Station. And we have seen more of this coastal flooding across the state in the last five years. I don't have data, we don't have data at this time to see if there's been subsidence of the road infrastructure. But that's certainly something that we could evaluate by doing elevation, taking elevation data of the road center line and the edges of the right of way to determine if we've had any settling of that road bed since it was installed in 2009 and 10.

Thank you.

Wendley, do you want to add in? You have to come on microphone because we're on video.

Hi, I'm Wendley Ferguson with Save the Bay and was involved with the city and our federal partners, NOAA and NRCS, on the design, installation, implementation, and some of the adaptive management at Gooseneck Cove. And I don't know if we have, I have from being out there post road raising in 2009, there was flooding even then from these larger than predicted tides. So this tide here is a king tide. So we have multiple times of year where our new and moon tides are the highest of the year. And then we also have these tides that are higher than predicted. So if you just go into NOAA's tide chart or tide app today, you can actually see that the tide today is higher than predicted. It wasn't a moon tide, but it was higher than predicted. So, Hayden, if you wouldn't mind going back to that slide there. So this was a photo that I took in 2009. I was not out on site when this was before my coast, but we were documenting high tides um flood tides at that point in time just using cameras and there clearly i was looking at what the rack with that high tide line um that it was on the roadway and my concern at that point in time was oh my goodness it was right after the road was raised so as you can see the fresh new road built in i think spring of 2009 and there it was flooding. But looking at the data, that tide height in 2009 was a 5.5 tide, so about half a foot higher than the highest predicted tides. The image that Teresa ended on that was taken at nightfall, that was a 5.6 foot tide, so about a tenth of a foot higher. So we've been experiencing these larger tide events not associated with storms, for a number of years. And so when I saw that tide height in June of 2009, I contacted my colleagues from the city and said, the road flooded last night. And what are you going to do to ensure public safety? and and that's when the city decided to close the road um so it was it was closed from 2009 in the fall late fall to to early spring um because there are no guardrails and the concern is if someone approached when it is dark and flooded there there could be a public safety issue so um So it's been going on, and of course we've had sea level rise since 2009, and we are seeing these more consistent higher-than-predicted tides. And that tool, the MiCoast tool, is a tool that's used statewide to document flooding of low-lying areas. There's all the reports there. and Casey Temper here from Sea Grant, they, CRMC and Sea Grant manage it. And we've been taking photos of moon tide or storm tide flooding for a number of years using this tool. So it's a great way to, you can upload the app on your phone, go out and take a photo. And that's, those are the reports from my coast. So you can see, The images taken before this summer, these are just images from residents, interested people who are going out looking for flooding during these king tides or storm tides.

So a king tide, you don't necessarily need rain. Exactly. The water just comes out.

Yep. And it doesn't have to be... The crazy thing about these higher than predicted tides, it's not necessarily associated with a storm either. It's not like an offshore swell. We're seeing these larger tide events on a regular basis now.

And when it is closed, when it has been closed from fall to spring, how do people navigate that area?

That would be a question for the city. I'm not exactly sure. I know some people, residents will walk and still use the loop. And I don't think there is no parking in front of the gates. I'm not sure about that, though. OK.

Thank you. Does anyone on the council have any questions?

Anyone?

Actually, I do. Thank you for all your hard work and energy and environment. So is there any way for the road to be built up again or for more culverts to be put in to mitigate some of this flooding?

We would need a detailed engineering design to do that. But we did it in 2009. If that's something the council wanted to put forward, we would have to get a cost estimate for that. It was $1 million back in 2010. but I think we'd have to look carefully too at not only the two tides a day every day, but also the storm surge impacts that we may have during big hurricanes or storm events of like, what are we investing in and what the vulnerability looks like under different forcing and wave action with its proximity to the ocean.

Okay, thank you. Did you say the cost back in 2009?

It was a million dollars.

It was a million.

And that was a million for all for the three new culverts under Ocean Drive, removing the dam and elevating Hazard Road. And I think, Hayden, you had the breakdown of that. It's been a while, so I forgot the numbers. I was going back into memory lane. That was my kid who's a senior in college on a sick day going to work with mom, looking at Hazard Road after construction. One thing that we, when... The city back in 2000, whenever, four, five, six, when we were in the design phase, there was a discussion about this very discussion. Do we... What do we do with Hazard Road? Because it was not passable. There was a pothole that residents can recall that swallowed up small cars on that southern stretch by the southern gate now. The northern area was pretty flat, but there were some significant... standing water areas and at that point in time the city decided that they wanted to elevate the road there was a discussion do we could there be a boardwalk there is a high pressure sewer line under the road so there was never a discussion of removing the whole thing and the city decided at that point they wanted to elevate the road and So it was wider, as you could see in those images of the construction. And to be able to elevate it without filling in wetland, if you go back to that photo, Hayden, you can see the old footprint of the road to the left of the riprap, the stone along the edge of the pavement. That was the roadbed. There was marsh grass growing along the edge of the road. And so to be able to elevate it high enough, it had to be shrunk in size. So that's when it was determined to be a one-way road. To elevate it again... would result in wetlands filling, which would, um, so we didn't fill any wetlands. I mean, technically the whole thing's a wetland, but we were on the footprint of the old roadway. If we, if the city decided to elevate it more, the side slopes would be bigger and then you would be filling in wetland or open water. So, um, you would also have those permitting concerns through the coastal resources management council.

It always scares me when you say there's a high pressure sewer line under there is that under is does that have any risk involved in that having that it's a private sewer line.

It's not managed by the city of Newport. But the right of way is part of the road. So that's, we'd have to retain the access to that sewer line if any repairs are needed in the future, but it's inspected regularly. Christina and Hayden looked into the sewer.

So the sewer line is owned by, it serves as a series of properties on Ocean Avenue between Green Bridge and Hazard Road and connects up through under Hazard Road to the city line by the high school under Wickham Road.

So is it inspected frequently?

um not by the it's privately owned so not by the city it's um it's maintained by the private property owners i think we need to look into that um okay thank you just an anecdote about that sewer line there was an algal bloom for those residents who remember what the cove was like that was about nine acres And it was a really thick algae bloom. Birds landed on it. Shorebirds landed on it in that upper part of Gooseneck Cove. And we thought it was... There's a sewer line, probably. There's a leak. There's excess nutrients coming from the sewer line. And it was actually the decomposing marsh peat itself. The sinking of the marsh was releasing nutrients. And there was very little sign of human source of bacteria. Not to say that it's not a good thing to inspect a sewer line that crosses a marsh. But it was interesting. We immediately went through, oh, it's got to be the sewer line. And it ended up to be the degrading marsh that was causing the algal bloom. And now one of the benefits of the restoration project improved water quality and reduced that algal bloom is gone now.

Thank you. Does anyone else from the council have any questions?

Thank you, Madam Vice Chair. Thank you for chairing this meeting. Thank you all for being here. I know it was announced that I would be late attending, and I will be early leaving. I apologize. I am the Council for the Third Ward. This is in my ward, or in the ward that I represent. It's not my ward. I happen to be fortunate enough to represent it. I have not heard from a single person in my three terms on the Council regarding concerns about Hazard Road, flooding, or other. I have certainly not heard from my constituents surrounding the area and throughout the Third Ward about the need to, forgive me, reimagine Hazard Road. What I have heard, though, is dozens and dozens and dozens of unnecessary concerns. They are concerns, but when I say unnecessary, I mean with due respect both the Commission and to a certain extent the city administration has caused those concerns for my constituents I consider that unacceptable what I'm talking about is what everybody here knows the discussion the discussion I mean I Perhaps we're on other sides. I apologize if I'm insulting you, but the discussion has been in the public realm, not at a commission meeting like this or workshop like this. The discussion on social media and elsewhere has been the potential for closing hazard road to traffic. And folks simply don't like that. I've heard from dozens and dozens and dozens of people. And if you would like, I would be more than willing to forward every communication that I have to both the city administration and to the Energy and Environment Commission because they are public communications once I received them as a member of the council. So I think that what has arisen from this is completely unnecessary for the folks who are very concerned about the closing potentially or otherwise upending of Hazard Road. And I'm here to represent those voices tonight. And I am also here to suggest that the money that the city receives via grant or potential grant from any source, federal or state, would be much better spent in the second ward, middle of the city, or particularly in the first ward where there are real flooding concerns. I would like the city to provide to everybody who wants it, first on the list is me, the number of complaints from abutters and others regarding flooding in and around the hazard area in the last four years, please. Thank you, Madam Vice Chair.

Well, right now, we're not into making any kind of suggestions for it. As Teresa said earlier, this is really just to get public input and to try to understand what's happening in that area. That's what's going to happen and it's going to happen for a while. There's been no recommendation whatsoever. The question I have though is how many times has it flood, let's say in the last, I don't know, year, let's say, and then also, What does the city do when it does flood? You said there are gates on both sides. So what happens?

We currently don't have a policy to close the gates when we know the high tides are predicted. And so every year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has a tide chart that shows us when the extreme high tides are going to happen. So the MyCoast app lays out for the whole year what the expected highest of the high tides will be for the state. So we have a ballpark of what we expect. And if there's a storm offshore, then we may have more evidence to close the gates. We certainly have the ability to set a policy through the city council to close the gates when we know a storm is coming up the coast or when a king tide or extreme high tide is predicted. And that's just something that would be operational from the city administration to make sure that there is a process in place to deploy public services or emergency management to close the gates for a set amount of time that we would effectively message out to the residents of the city to say there will be a temporary closing of the gates and we can open them after the risk clears.

So in the last, let's say two years, Do we have a number as to how many times it has actually flooded?

We don't have a sensor out in Hazard Road to give a specific picture of data of when the road was inundated, but that's certainly something we could install using some of these grant funds if we wanted to keep better track of how often the road is inundated from saltwater flooding. But we can go back and look at the, Kayden, can you go to the very last slide? It's the NOAA tides and currents chart. This one is, this is what we pulled from June 14th, 2026, that shows the blue line is the predicted tide, the red line is the preliminary, and then it turns green after the scientists verify it. So there's, in this case on June 14th, where that photo was taken, there was a, could you go back to the, thank you, just stay there. if you could, 0.8 feet or 9.6 inches higher than predicted. No storms, sunny day. So this is available from the Newport Tide Gauge, which is just up at the Naval Station. We have this for the last year. So we can certainly go back and calculate the delta. And any time there's a delta of, you know, six inches or higher, we could record what those dates are from the Newport Tide Gauge.

I have one more question and I'm going to have the Energy and Environment Commission ask questions. So when it does flood, let's say on that date, June 14th, how does the city notify the residents in that area? Is there a communication? Are there cones? I mean, what happens?

We currently don't deploy any infield um, messaging or gate closures, but, um, our communications director through, uh, Instagram, through social media, you know, does, um, share the, my coast information. Um, but we don't have anything that is specific to hazard road to indicate that it could be flooding, um, at a certain time.

And we have no ordinance that would require any kind of, um, No action taken. We do not.

Okay. And just to add to Teresa, if I may, um, we are working with us fish and wildlife monitoring water levels in salt marshes at Galilee marsh. And we're using, um, a tool that's new for us in salt marshes. But when I went to their website, I realized communities are using them, using it around the nation to monitor in real time, water level of, um, of roadway flooding. So this is Wi-Fi, water level logger, so you could actually, the DPW could see what the height is and know the elevation of the road and whether or not the road is subject to flooding without having eyes on the ground. So those are tools, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, when I was asking about the technology, because it's new for us to use it in a salt marsh, They are more than happy to help provide some guidance and we've helped them install these water level loggers. We've done the old fashioned, put it in a PVC pipe in a salt marsh, but now this is a newer technique. And then the city would have a dashboard with the data available, not just to the city, but to the public. So that might be something that is of interest to the city.

Well, it's concerning, especially without any guardrails there. Exactly. Energy and Environment Commission.

Madam Vice Chair, real quickly, before we turn it over, I'll yield to Gina if she wants to.

No, it just seems to me that there's enough leeway

and particularly with the programs and the equipment that we could employ that would tell people or they'd recognize ahead of time the road is flooded. I have a concern because, you know, God knows kids go out there late at night and it certainly would be a problem. I'm not in favor of I'm not in favor of closing that road completely. I think that would be, in my opinion, I think that would be disastrous. So many people enjoy the natural wildlife and everything else that you can see. I've taken my kids and my grandchildren down there. So, you know, I think there is a compromise in the making, but we have to have the data to support that. Okay, and there should be a better system. If it is flooded, the road is flooded, it should go out to all residents.

There has to be some sort of barrier, too. Yeah. David, did you have another question? I do.

First, I cannot find the communication, but I know the mayor was unable to attend this evening, but the mayor is also, as Councilor Napolitano just said— against the possibility of closing the road to the public. He also believes, as he told me earlier, that there are better uses for the funding coming from either the federal or the state government than what is potentially being proposed here and has been in the last few weeks or months. With that, can I hear from the administration, particularly the deputy city manager, about your thoughts, Mr. Deputy Manager, regarding this process, meaning how we got to where we are, how the public notification was handled, and what you think, frankly, about what has been discussed this evening and your thoughts going forward, please.

I think as it was explained by Director Crane, I think she's articulated very well why we are here and why we received the grant money. As far as this actual process is concerned, initially, I think probably Councillor Carlin was referring earlier to Some alarm or some concerns we did make in a butter notification early on when this 1st came to light and we were going to be sitting down to have the discussion. The city probably could have. articulated in their messaging and that abutter notice a little bit better regarding, because it was mentioned that one of the potential options may have been to limit vehicular traffic on that road. And I think that may have caused some concern. And we recognize that. But since that point, Um, I think that we've delivered, I think we've delivered an appropriate message, which is why there are so many people here today. And, um, as far as closing the road is concerned. As a 35 years of of. Of service in this community, I, I concur that is not a number 1 option. That is not something that I would like to see happen. However, as discussion has ensued here this evening. I think we can all agree that public safety is paramount. We're talking about these sensors. We're talking about some of this funding perhaps going to monitoring that road and putting sensors in that area to give us a better determination as to when that road may flood. And we do need policy, and we've talked about this as to the flooding in that road and making sure that it's safe. So public safety outside of – unless there's a public safety absolute – Necessity. I agree. That should not be an option on the table to close that road. I appreciate it, Mr. Deputy Manager.

Appreciate it, Madam Vice Chair. Closing question. Do you think the money that is potentially available to us, which we have not spent yet from either the federal or the state government or a combination of both is better spent in other parts of the city? to address their real flooding concerns, or is this the appropriate use of the money to set up a monitoring sensor system, et cetera, here on Hazard Road, one specific road, as opposed to very significant portions of the second and specifically the first ward? Thank you.

I think what separates this location from others in this city, because as you indicated, yes, we have flooding problems all over the city. I think this particular location, though, we have environmental and ecological concerns equally to flooding. And I think that a lot of this money is dedicated to that investigation as well, in addition to the flooding. So I think that under this particular grant, I believe that this that this location is appropriate. However, the council will decide as to whether or not these funds are spent, and this grant is spent here, somewhere else, or not at all, for that matter. As Director Kareen indicated, not a dime has been spent yet, and we always have the alternative of sending that money back as well.

Mike, is the grant, or does, and pardon me, Councilor Napolitano, does the grant restrict the... use of the money to Hazard Road or to a specific geographic area in the city? Yes.

I mean, I'll defer to Director Crean. But yes, there are restrictions in the grant as to where. But we certainly could go back. Um, um, to rib and we could, we could go back and we could, we could request an amendment to that grant to see if they would permit us to spend it somewhere else. But as it stands right now, it is restricted to that area. And please correct me Teresa.

Yeah, no, that's correct. And we haven't gone back to rib to talk about, um, you know, if we can repurpose this fund funding for another location that had the same criteria for site selection that the grant program supports. But we certainly, to your point, Councillor Carlin, you know, have no shortage of project, eligible projects that could be argued for back to RIB to, you know, redirect these funds if we make that case.

Thank you all. Madam Chair, I just want to point out that that area lacks lighting. So at night, that is a particular concern if in fact it was flooded out. that that's what I'm concerned about, you know, during the day. And people need to use their common sense. We know teenagers don't always have that. So I'm just, you know, I want to see the road stay open, particularly for the people that want to go down that area and enjoy everything it has to offer. However, there is a concern about the flooding. We need a system that notifies people of the flooding. And, you know, I just, I feel very strongly about that.

Yeah, I feel as though the city needs more information on this. And so I'd like to turn it over to the energy and environment. Yes. I just had a question for Director Crean.

Regarding flooding in Ward 1, I live in Ward 1, so I'm very familiar with it. Is that mostly related to our stormwater issues and the issues with the Brook, whereas this is a completely separate type of flooding? Yes and no.

The Ward 1 flooding is we have stormwater that flows from the Miami-Dade Park area down Elizabeth Brook to our north end and the intersection of all of the new ramp realignment that we see from Rhode Island DOT. And the mouth of the Elizabeth Brook runs kind of behind the commercial businesses under the rail right of way into the bay near the river. adjacent to the Navy Naval Station Newport. So when the tides are high, or when there's a storm surge, if we get a wet storm, that precipitation has nowhere to go. And so we have to be mindful of the confluence of upstream precipitation and downstream flooding running into storm surges coming in from the ocean and the bay. And that's going to be a long game that, you know, Director Schultz and the Utilities Department is working with Jacobs Engineering to do the different phases for Elizabeth Brook. We have Prescott Hall as the phase one of that project. And phases two and three are under development right now. So it's gonna, there's a complicated system there. We wanna make sure as we're addressing the stormwater management in each of these phases of the Elizabeth Brook watershed that we're not creating more problems for other places and that we're keeping up with the changing science and the data that we're finding from graphs like this that this is real data. These aren't projections. And for us to keep on top of that so that we are making informed decisions and providing you all with the decision support tools that you need to spend the municipal money effectively and for us to leverage grants when we can to address these problems.

And what is the cost estimate to address that type of flooding versus the grant for this project?

Oh, this grant is a small number compared to the eight-figure numbers, if not higher, that we're going to need to address the flooding in the north end.

Thank you. And this is a grant. You said RIB, so I always think of loans when it comes to Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank.

This is a grant. Correct, with no match. Okay, with no match. Correct.

Okay, energy and environment. Do you have anything that you'd like to ask or comment on?

Thank you so much. Thank you for having us. Thank you. Counselor cycling. Thank you to the full council for agreeing to have this event. And, um, I just want to thank the city resilience department and the city administration for, um, this wonderful presentation. The city, um, director cream 1st, brought this to us, um, earlier this year, so that the energy and environment commission could serve as. one of the public forums to engage on this topic, and we're very glad to be learning about all of this alongside all of you. I think that this is a tremendous presentation. I learned a lot about the history, and I'm really glad we have already the technological support from apps like MyCoast and Save the Bay. I think my main question right now, it seems counterintuitive often to talk about restoring tidal flow as a way to mitigate flooding and so i wonder if if um either the resilience staff or perhaps um wendley you could talk about why that is a strategy that we pursue and why we um as a nature-based adaptation strategy, we would actually prefer to have tidal flow rather than the historic model of damming and that sort of thing.

So as part of the restoration project, a major impact to Gooseneck Cove was the dam. And if anyone has history of when that dam was built... We, in the time I was working on the project, I didn't find the actual date of the dam, as Hayden mentioned, when it was originally constructed. It was reconstructed, I think, in 42. And that probably had the greatest impact to the marsh because it impounded water on the marsh. And I see it on a very small scale today in our marsh restoration projects. Anytime water sits on a marsh platform, for any extended period of time, even a few years, even the marsh, basically the vegetation starts to get stunted, dies off, and all of the root system that allows the marsh to build elevation and keep pace with sea level rise, because sea level rise has been going on for thousands of years, we, that ends. So the marsh subsides and, um, and then this, the negative consequence of a positive feedback loop and it, it just gets worse and worse. And so we, that's what we saw with, um, Gooseneck Cove. And if you go back to the 1939 aerial imagery or the, um, Sarah Silver, Old charts, you can see, there was so much more wetland the wetland was lost due to the dam that the goose the goose head of gooseneck cove that was all marsh in that southern part of. Sarah Silver, The goose head and. Sarah Silver, So that all subsided and we're not getting that marsh back it's it's long gone unfortunately. And that's unfortunately been the case with a lot of the salt marsh in this cove because of the years and years of impounded water. So restoring that tidal flow helped increase the resilience of the marsh by allowing the water to drain off that it could revegetate and then having marsh vegetation, it's more resilient to have a healthy marsh next to infrastructure than open water. So that's one of the reasons why tidal flow restoration was considered. And we were just discussing, in 2000, we were not talking about sea level rise projections with this project. We were really focused on restoring the marsh. And the city wanted to, as part of that project, elevate the road. And we were definitely interested in public access enhancement. And those were goals that we all collectively had for this project.

Anyone else on energy environment? Andy?

Yeah, thank you. I want to preface this by saying I live on this side of the city. And so I'm not, while I'm familiar with Ocean Drive, I'm not, I don't frequent out that side of the city where Hazard Road, I know where it is. But just sort of for a process question, as we move forward and we gather public information, I'm just wondering what is the requirement for the road? And I have heard different comments here, so I could imagine there might be a requirement for fire, police, and safety, and the city might know that and say, absolutely, that's an access for fire trucks and vehicles. stuff um i certainly would guess that for everybody that's here behind me that there is residential access but then i've heard a heavy tone that it's for recreational use and then i've even heard that it might be uh support a sewer line so i somehow i think that's a fundamental question as we as we proceed and how the input comes in so that's really Sort of a question, but sort of just an early comment. Thank you.

That was my question, because if the road has been closed, gets closed from October to spring, what happens with the emergency vehicles? What do they do? I'm sure that they must have another route that they use.

I can answer that. So for the three houses that are on that southern side of hazard road. The two roads that you see on the opposite side on the map here on both sides of the road there take two and four minutes more respectively to get to those three houses for public safety and fire.

Okay, thank you. Anyone else on environment energy.

Could you go back to the slide with the outline of the goals of the grant? And I was just wondering how much of the discussion is going to be based on Yeah, on the fish and wildlife habitat and restoring the landscape that's not populated with just the Phragmites or if the road is essential to those parts of, or to those goals as well, like addressing the road. Or if without making changes to the road, we can still restore fish and wildlife habitat.

I'm sorry, could you just repeat the last part of the question? Avery, I didn't.

Oh, can we pursue the goal of enhancing fish and wildlife habitat without addressing the road, basically?

So that's certainly something that we can include in a scope. Because again, we have $50,000 to play with. We haven't put together an RFP for consultant services or for partner payments. And if that's something that the commission and the council would want to see as part of this, we you know have saved the bay to help guide us on that and what would enhancement of fish and wildlife habitat look like i certainly cannot speak to that it would be an ecological um study or assessment and wendley i don't know if how you all would scope something like that if you're looking to enhance fish and wildlife habitat in a location like this around a road bed

Yeah, it's, as I mentioned, this marsh has been impacted for centuries. And unfortunately, there are sections of the marsh that aren't going to return. And unless there was some larger scale effort to do something similar to what we've done in other areas, like at Satchewess Marsh, we worked with U.S. Fish and Wildlife. They they did a sediment placement project and literally elevated a marsh that was too low in elevation to support marsh grasses and the wildlife that depends on it. So that's something I think for this site, it would be a very difficult site to do a project like that because of the where the source of sediment would come from, things like that. But that is, I don't know if I'm answering your question. If, you know, the whole focus of the original restoration project was to restore habitat and water quality with an added benefit of enhancing public access.

I think I have a quick comment. When you do the habitat restoration work Is there a target species or a list of sort of like what type of habitat you're designing for with, you know, there were ground nesting birds, for example, in the Satuest Marsh. We're trying to preserve a ground nesting bird that was threatened from Two Tides a Day with their nests on the ground, the surface of the marsh.

Yeah, so those projects where we've actually technically filled a marsh and elevated it to an elevation that can support those ground nesting birds like the salt marsh sparrow that are very, very vulnerable due to sea level rise. That was the goal, was enhancing habitat for a specific species. species and then those other species that would benefit as well. So this site, we were not into specific species habitat. We were really looking at the holistic, how to enhance the marsh habitat as well as the water quality.

Thank you. I'd like to... have a little input from the public, but I don't believe we're here to talk about closing the road tonight. So I'm going to restrict comments to because we are nowhere near that recommendation. So if anyone has any insights as to what they have seen in that area, how they think that we can protect it better, any kind of policy we can have to do that, I would like to hear that.

So I would just say we do need to have people speak into the microphone because we are not live streaming this, but we are recording it on video for people to be able to watch afterwards. So we can certainly open one of these microphones. Okay.

And we'll take a few comments. But basically, tonight is to hear from you pertaining to the boards, what your recommendations are. You'll have your input on paper. And certainly, if you have any questions for Save the Bay, resilient sustainability, city policy, we're all here to talk about that. So we'll take a couple of comments, and then we'll move it over to the stickies. All right?

OK. Did you have something? Yes.

Come on over. We can sit over here. Hi. Name's Veronica. Would you, your full name and address, please?

Veronica Thomas, and my property abuts the Hazard Road marsh. One of the things I notice is not only the flooding, which you can't control, but the stagnation of the water. Because there's not enough cover, so there's not enough flow from the smaller marsh to the larger marsh. And I think that's something that has not been addressed or thought discussed this evening. And I just wanted to bring that out.

Thank you. How many times have you seen it flood since you've lived there?

I actually haven't seen a flood that much, but it is a lovely place to walk. And, you know, I'm not going to raise the issue of raising the road or whatever, but traffic is an issue. You know, some people speed down that path and that's probably not smart.

Right. Thank you. Anyone else with an insight or a comment other than closing the road?

Hi, I'm Barbara Chapman. My property is right at Hazard and Ocean. First, I want to thank the staffers for the Planning Commission and the Environmental Committee, and especially Winley Ferguson, whose efforts to save the marsh environment have been amazing over the last 15, 20 years. What I'd like to point out is that the Google navigation takes all cars that try to get from the center of Newport over to Ocean over Hazard Road. And I see it over and over and over again. I probably am on that road three times a day walking my dog and enjoying nature. And 18-wheeler trucks all the time. All those party trucks bringing event trucks back and forth on Hazard Road. all the Uber drivers come Hazard Road. And when I come back from TF Green, if I get a car to bring me, I have to physically stop them from going down Hazard Road. And I think that's something that could be addressed easily. That's all I want to say now, but I want to say what a beautiful and fragile environment it is and how much pleasure it brings to near neighbors and far neighbors. And I'd love to see it made available to the public in a wonderful way. maybe not by driving through.

Thank you. We'll take one more, and then we'll turn it over to the boards.

My name is Reagan Siebold. I live in 70 Carroll in the Ocean's Way Apartments. I frequent here a lot. I just wanted to add, like almost every day, I just wanted to add I love it there. I actually got engaged there. I have a huge emotional connection attachment to it um i also swam for the save the bay swim and i really appreciate everything you guys do every time i have an issue or i see like a big algal bloom i'll send an email you guys respond immediately like the same day and have a solution or at least information which is amazing and also that i've seen a lot of dumping lately from landscapers I don't know if anyone's noticed that, and a ton of trash. You can see a huge difference between off-season and on-season for tourists. Every single day I will find trash there. I'll pick it up personally, throw it out. I don't think personally that would be improved by a trash can. I think it would overflow. I would also be hesitant to ever put lighting there just due to the wildlife. I would really hesitate to disturb it any more than it already has been. But mainly the trash is like a huge problem. And I've noticed more recently the dumping is insane from landscaping. I've seen them personally do it.

So you take a picture next time you see something like that.

Yeah, I will. Thank you. Thank you.

Through the Report It app would be helpful for us to have the data points in our Report It app.

Absolutely. All right. Tanner, did you want to say something?

If I can, very briefly.

Okay. Briefly. Thank you.

I know that, uh, I submitted a letter ahead of time and I, I hope everyone had the quick opportunity to read it. Um, I'll skip over anything related to closing the road and traffic, um, at your request. So, I just wanted to relay 2 concerns that my client had, uh, my clients, Edith McBean at 70 attorney Jackson. Tanner Jackson of Miller, Scott Holbrook and Jackson on behalf of Edith McBean from 75 hazard road. I just had two concerns that I wanted to relay to you. The first was, which was already mentioned, is the litter that is existing there on the roadway. My client does walk along the road and drives on it as well and sees trash along the side of the road. And so when you're doing the data collection, if you can do spot checks or monitor the amount of trash and then analyze what sort of steps could be taken to reduce that. The other concern that my client had was or are ticks that are in the vegetation along the side of the road. She walks her dog along the road, and then, of course, the dogs get a lot of ticks. So if vegetation is part of this proposed project, installing vegetation on the side of the roadway to improve the environment, that the tick population be taken into account as well. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. One more. We got Paige. Excuse me, Ms. Nagel. You're not running this meeting. Thank you. Go ahead. You may sit down.

Thank you for the opportunity. My name is Lori Love. I've just finished six years on the Energy and Environment Commission, and we've never taken a position to close the road. I am a huge fan. I think it's one of the most precious spots and most beautiful spots in all of Newport. I live on this side, just on the other side of K, and I ride my bike down there all the time. to add on to what this other woman said. I look at the cars that go through, and 90% are Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts. It's really, really a lot of out-of-towners, and I'm always picking up trash and putting bottles in and taking that away. So I think the The number of people who in the past had been crabbing and coming, that's diminished, but the word is out that it's just the most beautiful spot in Newport, and we've got everybody that's tooling through there, as well as commercial traffic. So the only thing I might suggest is maybe we could curtail the commercial traffic that goes through there. And then just, I think, just have everyone be more mindful of picking up after others because it is very...

I think that's something we need to look at, curtailing the large trucks. I mean, we certainly have weight restrictions on other roads. They're difficult to... it's difficult for the police to be able to monitor them all the time, but we certainly put signage up and say that their certain tar weight is not allowed. So thank you. Very good. Thank you. All right. I just want to say this meeting is not over. You still have, we're going to have these discussions at the boards. This is why I wanted to restrict some of the public comment because we still can discuss things and the meeting is not over. So We'll just have Paige Bronk, if you want to speak for a minute.

Thank you. I'll be brief. Paige Bronk, 24 Weatherly Avenue in Newport. A couple things. I just want to do a test and thank the environmental partners for continuing with this project. I was involved about 20 years ago, seems like yesterday, but relatively I think it's been a successful project. What I vividly remember are the discussions back and forth. It wasn't always clear-cut. We knew that there were going to be many management decisions to be made. One was the elevation of the road. There were several different designs that were discussed. Internally, we discussed, how are we going to handle with the management? You know, we'll deal with it as it comes. I live pretty close to the location. I drive it. I walk it. I bike it. I use my scooter. I've never seen a traffic problem there quite often. I think it's a serene area. People seem fairly respectable. No issues or conflicts. I think the last thing that I really want to drive home is that there are multiple users. I am concerned. Newport, we pride ourselves as being walkable. You can get everywhere in the city fairly easily. I see, as I said, I've used it myself, multiple modes of transportation. I do see many seniors. And I'm concerned about limiting access in the future. I think it's so beautiful and it's enjoyable and peaceful. We need to make sure that we continue that moving forward. I'm confident the process will end up with some great outcomes and that the city will be able to manage this long term. Thank you.

Thank you. Yeah, I think that we need more information. I think this grant has been great. And I want to thank the staff. I want to thank, certainly, Save the Bay and Energy and Environment for being here. Let's just, we can all get up, have our...

um comments at the boards and if you have any other questions um please feel free thank you there are there are post-it notes for those who did not get a chance to speak to can leave notes on the board thank you so much thank you thank you thanks for letting me sit up here

I'm guessing. I recognize the name and the face.