The water was running high on this recent muggy afternoon, as a group of volunteers in hip waders prepared to step into the Woonasquatucket River.
The banks were lush and green, with a bike path running along one side. Under the trees, coffee cup lids, bottles, and plastic bags littered the ground. Broken glass mingled with clam shells in the mud. And a shimmering rainbow slick coated the edge of the water.
“The perception of being an urban waterway is: ‘That’s so gross. How could there ever be anything that lives in here?’” said Sara Canuel, education director for the Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council. “And my favorite thing about this is we are constantly proving people wrong by going directly into the river and checking out all the cool stuff that lives in there.”
Canuel was speaking to a handful of volunteers who’d gathered near a dam behind the Rising Sun Mills in Providence’s Olneyville neighborhood to conduct an electrofishing survey. The mill used to turn raw wool into cloth. It was one of the many factories dotting the banks.
“There were actually some dye mills around the Woonasquatucket as well. And they would actually dump their dyes into the water when they were through with it,” said environmental educator Naya Black. “So you could actually tell what kinds of dyes they were working with in those mills based off of the color of the river.”
The river is contaminated with lead, mercury, and fecal coliform bacteria, according to the state Department of Environmental Management. Upstream, clean up is ongoing on the Centredale Manor Superfund site, where the Environmental Protection Agency has identified a slew of hazardous chemicals, including PCBs and dioxins.
For protection, the in-water crew suited up in hip waders and gloves.
Volunteer John Berkholtz pulled on the heavy electrofishing backpack and picked up a long rod with a metal loop at one end.
When the team was in the water, Canuel turned on the backpack, which started to beep. Holding the electrified loop out in front, Berkholtz waved the wand back and forth through the water, trying to temporarily stun any nearby fish.
The fish were mostly small, and tricky to spot. Behind him, two people held nets on long wooden poles in the current. They peered into the water — looking for disoriented fish to scoop up.
When they snagged one, they transferred it into orange buckets held by another pair.
The triangle of people zigzagged across the river, stepping carefully over slippery rocks and submerged trash as they worked their way upstream towards the dam.
When they’d caught a few fish, Black carried a bucket up to a second group, sitting at a picnic table nearby. Greenway manager Jacob Gorke identified and photographed the fish, with help from volunteers — including three teenagers who had come down to the river for a picnic.
“It’s nice to know what’s under the water, like what you can’t see from where we were,” one of the girls said.
“And it’s surprising. Because I thought that we would never see an eel,” her friend agreed. “I thought there would maybe be fishes, but not an eel. I was really surprised about it.”
“It made me a lot less afraid of eels,” the third chimed in.
On this day, the group collected just ten fish — a mixture of longnose dace, American eel, and tessellated darter — which they later released downstream. The WRWC has been doing electrofishing surveys since 2014, looking for biodiversity as an indicator of the river’s health. They’re also watching for species changes related to climate change.
Usually they catch more. But the water was high, making it harder to electrofish.
Standing in the water, Canuel said the data itself is just part of the reason for doing these surveys.
“I think this is so important for fostering stewardship. So getting people excited about what lives in local urban rivers. And really — sorry I thought I saw a fish and I was ready,” she said, turning her attention back to the net in her hand.
Learn about future opportunities to volunteer with the Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council.
—
Reporter Sofie Rudin can be reached at srudin@thepublicsradio.org.
