Wasting a Waterway - Rhode Island historical marker - Lincoln, Rhode Island - Rhode Island Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

Local mills and industry polluted the Blackstone River, which runs through Rhode Island, for over 200 years. The Clean Water Act of 1972 ended that practice and began a massive reclamation of the river and its banks. This historical marker along the Blackstone River Bikeway tells that story.

Wasting a Waterway

Folks around here love the Blackstone River, but it wasn’t always that way. For about 200 years, industrial mills dumped waste into the waters that gave them life. As the river died, residents also began to trash it. The river was clogged with everything from bottles and cans to washing machines and cars. It seemed beyond repair.

The story continues at the bottom right corner of the marker:

A Labor of Love

In 1972, the Clean Water Act brought an end to dumping. That same year, local activists organized a major cleanup effort called, “ZAP the Blackstone.”

Some 10,000 volunteers waded in, removing 10,000 tons of trash and debris along the length of the Blackstone. That sense of stewardship lives on today, as local organizations and volunteers continue working to protect their river.

A full-color photo of turbid coffee-colored water, floating yellow sludge, myriad bottles and cans, an automobile tire and rim, and a great quantity of detritus illustrating the river’s former malaise, the main image covers three-quarters of the background. Its caption reads: “The Blackstone River in the early 1970s.”

To the upper right, a photograph of abandoned 1950s car bodies laying scattered along the shoreline. The photo in the bottom right corner shows a pile of hundreds of car tires and a half dozen men loading them into a dump truck.

Superimposed at the junction of the three images is a round pinback button from the 1972 cleanup program. It features the word “ZAP” in a jagged edge, navy blue font on a solid amber background.