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2 weeks ago | 
oceanstatestories.org | Rob Smith
This story was originally published by ecoRI News, a publication partner of Ocean State Stories. PROVIDENCE — With just weeks left to go on the General Assembly’s legislative clock, this year’s battle lines around bottle bill legislation are sharper than ever.
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1 month ago | 
ecori.org | Rob Smith |Bonnie Phillips
NORTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. — When Ralph Mollis was hired as town manager in 2017, he didn’t have an office in Town Hall; in fact, the town didn’t really have a Town Hall. The year before, town officials and the state Fire Safety Code Board of Appeals and Review ordered Town Hall closed, citing about 30 violations and deeming it a safety risk to town employees and the public.
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1 month ago | 
ecori.org | Rob Smith |Bonnie Phillips
PROVIDENCE — After 18 months of study, more than a dozen meetings, and hundreds of pieces of testimony, evidence, and presentations, Rhode Island’s joint study commission on plastic waste released its report, which revealed, unsurprisingly, that legislation in support of a bottle bill faces steep opposition. The bottle bill is one of those pieces of environmental legislation that remain stuck in a state of political limbo.
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2 months ago | 
ecori.org | Rob Smith |Bonnie Phillips
By Rob Smith / ecoRI News staff March 31, 2025 Managing the uses of and access to Rhode Island’s coastline is no easy task. It’s made more difficult when a citizen board lacking coastal knowledge and appointed by politicians ignores years of experience to overrule Coastal Resources Management Council staff.
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2 months ago | 
ecori.org | Rob Smith |Bonnie Phillips
PROVIDENCE — Even in the best of times, farming in Rhode Island can be a challenge. It’s called the Ocean State, not the Farm State, for a reason. Farmland has rapidly vanished underneath strip malls and housing subdivisions over the years, while land and space for agriculture remains at a high premium. Farms in Rhode Island just don’t have the room to grow into the sizes seen in other, larger states.
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2 months ago | 
ecori.org | Rob Smith |Bonnie Phillips
JOHNSTON, R.I. — Less than 5 miles west of downtown Providence lies the state’s biggest ticking clock. It’s not a real timepiece, it doesn’t tell you the time of day, although it’s not dissimilar to the sand that fills up an hourglass. Spread across 1,200 acres off Interstate 295 is a series of misshapen hills in an unusual shade of green. Passersby approaching from the west might be confused about what’s there, until they see the industrial equipment and dump trucks discharging mountains of trash.
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2 months ago | 
ecori.org | Rob Smith |Bonnie Phillips
PROVIDENCE — What happens when a link in the circle of life is human-made? Rats are a species of animal close to the bottom of the ecosystem’s food chain. Their smaller size makes them a great meal for bigger, faster predators such as hawks, owls, and other raptors, and their habit of living amid human development to scrounge for food makes them an unwanted neighbor.
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2 months ago | 
ecori.org | Rob Smith |Bonnie Phillips
PROVIDENCE — A week and a half after ratepayers filled a hearing room at the Public Utilities Commission to express rage and frustration at sky-high electric and natural gas rates, advocates filled the Statehouse on Thursday evening to support a bevy of legislation aimed at lowering energy costs and aimed their criticism at the state’s main utility company.
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2 months ago | 
ecori.org | Colleen Cronin |Joanna Detz |Rob Smith |Bonnie Phillips
Skip to content By Colleen Cronin, Joanna Detz, and Rob Smith / ecoRI News staff March 20, 2025 In recent years, Rhode Island has experienced, on average, about 70 wildfires per year. Ecosystem disruption fueled by climate change is only going to make the state more susceptible to such fires.
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2 months ago | 
ecori.org | Rob Smith |Bonnie Phillips
NORTH SMITHFIELD, R.I. — Middle school cafeterias aren’t usually packed on Monday nights. But it wasn’t students that filled the room the evening of March 3 — they had left hours ago when the last bell rang in the afternoon. Instead, it was dozens and dozens and dozens of town residents, organized, mobilized, and eternally frustrated with a quarry operation that abutters have long alleged is the worst neighbor in town.
