Green economy ballot question calls for sustainable infrastructure, land conservation
Rhode Island has a $53 million green economy bond on the ballot for the 2024 election, listed as Question 4, that will provide funding to nine different sectors within environmental development and sustainability.
The largest allocation of funding is to the Port of Davisville. The port is promised $15 million toward their current renovations project, which has a total cost of over $230 million, according to Lindsey Russell, an executive at the New Harbor Group who represents the port.
Renovations to the port include the replacement of infrastructure from the port’s inception in 1941, such as updating the wooden structures currently supporting pier one, and replacing them with steel pilings and a concrete deck.
While the port is consistently one of the top car importers in the United States, this funding will go toward the port’s support of the state’s growing blue economy through the advancement of offshore wind infrastructure, according to Russell.
“We’re up 25% over the number of offshore wind vessel traffic that we had in 2023,” Russell said. “Offshore wind vessel [traffic], as the offshore wind industry expands, is rising. So the port needs more berthing space.”
If the bond is passed, the $15 million would also be used for the construction of terminal five, a specific support dock for offshore wind traffic and the blue economy, according to Russell. These port renovations are estimated to bring in 1,100 new jobs and expand annual revenue.
The port is currently home to 1,600 jobs, $99 million in household revenue and $56 million in annual taxpayer revenue, according to the Quonset Development Corporation.
“When we expand the port we expand that number of jobs,” Russell said. “We expand the household income for [the] Rhode Islander – the economic growth in the state. We encourage more businesses who work in offshore wind and who work in the blue economy to come to Rhode Island.”
The $53 million is only the principal cost of the bond, according to the Rhode Island voter information handbook. The bond also carries with it $32 million in interest for the state, bringing its total cost to $85 million to be paid over 20 years.
“You can kind of see, if you start doing that dividing, over 20 years the amount of money that each taxpayer spends on these bonds [is] pretty small,” Emily Lynch said, a political science professor at the University of Rhode Island.
Over the past eight years, the state has passed four green economy bonds, totaling over $200 million, according to the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management. Past projects that these bonds have funded include clean drinking water and stormwater programs, bike path expansion and improvements to the Roger Williams Park Zoo.
One state agency that relies on these bonds is the Agricultural Land Preservation Commission, housed within the Rhode Island DEM. The ALPC is set to receive $5 million in the 2024 bond. The commission is also funded by the federal farm bill, which was passed in 2018 and has been continually renewed every two years, according to the Rhode Island DEM.
The bill provides “support for America’s farmers, ranchers and forest stewards through a variety of safety net, farm loan, conservation and disaster assistance programs,” according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
“It really is an unknown,” Michelle Sheehan, the land conservation & acquisition program supervisor for the Rhode Island DEM, said. “Is [the farm bill] going to get reauthorized with more money for farmland protection programs or not?”
The commission is responsible for acquiring development rights to agricultural land and preserving them for current and future farmers, as well as the Rhode Island community as a whole.
“The farmland bond is always popular, I think because we’re such a small dense state,” Sheehan said. “Everyone, in most communities, has direct knowledge of a farm… Having that be a part of the landscape and adding to their quality of life, adding to their sense of place – I think people are sort of emotionally tied to our farmland.”
Albeit popular, the ALPC’s farmland preservation funding was not on the original bond budget, according to Sheehan. Also initially left out of the bond was $3 million toward the Open Space Program and $5 million toward forest and habitat management.
Local environmental groups, including the Rhode Island Land Trust, the Audubon Society of Rhode Island, The Nature Conservancy, the Rhode Island Food Policy Council and Save The Bay, advocated to put the allocations back in budget, according to Jed Thorp, the director of advocacy at Save the Bay.
“I think most Rhode Islanders recognize that the environment is one of our greatest assets and it’s important to invest in it,” Thorp said.
As a non-profit organization, Save The Bay will not receive any direct funding from the Question 4 bond. However, due to their work protecting and conserving Narragansett Bay and surrounding water and watersheds, they have been vocal supporters of the bond.
“Climate change is here, it’s no longer something that’s off in the future,” Thorp said. “We’re already seeing the impacts and the sooner that we start to adapt to it and make our communities more resilient, the better. The way that we’re able to do that upfront spending and upfront work to get ahead of it is through things like bond funding.”
Aside from the port, the ALPC, the Open Space Program, and forest and habitat management, the remaining $25 million in the bond is doled out to five other sectors.
This funding would be $2 million toward flood prevention and coastal habitat resiliency, $5 million toward brownfields remediation and economic development, $5 million to local recreation facilities, $10 million to local improvements to infrastructure, coastal habitats and rivers and stream floodplains, and $3 million to the Newport Cliff Walk.
Polls opened across the state at 7 a.m. on Tuesday. For more information on polling locations and specific ballot measures, visit the Rhode Island Voter Information Center on the state’s website.
This article was produced in conjunction with the University of Rhode Island’s public affairs reporting class under the journalism and public relations department.