On Friday, Associate Justice Brian P. Stern granted Special Master Rick Land authority to guide Rhode Island Recycled Metals through its environmental permitting process, including permits related to land remediation and stormwater control. Land, an attorney for Chace Ruttenberg & Freedman, LLP, says the judge’s decision on Friday is good news.
“I’m encouraged that we’re moving in the right direction. It has been a long and at times grueling process,” Land said in an interview.
According to the ruling, since 2018, Rhode Island Recycled Metals, or RIRM, has been found in violation of at least four statewide environmental laws, and has experienced four fires, including one in July which sent plumes of thick, black smoke across Narragansett Bay.
The office of Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha wanted Land’s status to be upgraded from special master to receiver – a position which gives a court-appointee oversight over all aspects of a business.
The state argued in a memo to the court that “despite the continued, intense, and good faith efforts, for more than a decade, of the Special Master, the State, and this Court to coax, hand-hold, and force RIRM toward compliance at every step, compliance is not on the horizon.”
Although Stern stopped short of naming Land a receiver, the powers he granted him over environmental permitting efforts are expansive. A spokesperson for the Attorney General’s Office says Peter Neronha is pleased with the court’s decision but will continue to keep an eye on Rhode Island Recycled Metal’s actions.
Environmental justice activist Monica Huertas from the neighboring community of Washington Park was critical of the decision. Huertas said she was hoping that the court would shut the business down. She said having more oversight hasn’t helped in the past, so she doesn’t see how it will help now.
“The state’s been watching, and with the state watching them, they still had all these violations and all these fires,” she said. “They just continue to just play games with the community at the expense of the community’s health.”
During and directly following the July 10 fire at Rhode Island Recycled Metals, air quality monitors installed by Brown University research group Breathe Providence picked up high spikes in a particulate matter called PM2.5 not only in South Providence, but also in Fox Point, Hope Street and Pawtucket. The group’s director, Professor Meredith Hastings, reported her findings to the court and pointed out that exposure to PM2.5 can lead to or exacerbate respiratory conditions and contribute to certain types of cancers.
“Even short-term exposures, low concentrations (including below EPA standards), and small increases in average daily exposure can lead to negative health consequences,” she wrote.
Following the court’s decision, Hastings wrote in an email to Tthe Public’s Radio that it’s “a step in the right direction. Industries in the Port of Providence really do need to be held accountable and make changes that will protect the health, well being and quality of environment for the surrounding communities and their workers.”
Residents in neighborhoods around the Port of Providence have higher rates of asthma than in other communities around the state.
Rhode Island Recycled Metals could not be reached for comment for this story.
