The river is named after William Blackstone (original spelling William Blaxton), who arrived in Weymouth, Massachusetts, in 1623 and became the first European settler of present-day Boston in 1625. He relocated to Rhode Island in 1635 and built his home on the river, in what would become Cumberland. Along with the Providence River, the Blackstone served as the northeastern border of Dutch claims for New Netherland from Adriaen Block's charting of Narragansett Bay in 1614 through the Hartford Treaty of 1650.
The original Native American name for the river was the "Kittacuck", which meant "the great tidal river". The "Kittacuck", or the "Blackstone", was plentiful with salmon and lamprey in pre-colonial and colonial times.[2]
Slater Mill in Pawtucket, along the Blackstone River
In 1790, Samuel Slater opened the first successful water-powered cotton mill in America: Slater Mill, at Pawtucket Falls. This mill was powered by the waters of the Blackstone River. Many other mills appeared along the Blackstone River over time, making it a significant American industrial location. The industrialization also led to the river being identified by the end of the 20th century as the primary source of Narragansett Bay pollution.[3]
In August 1955, severe flooding on the Blackstone caused extensive damage to Woonsocket, Rhode Island. Whereas the river is usually 70 feet (21 m) wide, it swelled to over 1 mile (1.6 km) wide.[4] The flooding of the Blackstone was the result of a succession of dam breaks, which were caused by rainfall from Hurricane Connie, and Hurricane Diane a week later, which together deposited over 20 inches (510 mm) of rain in parts of Rhode Island and Massachusetts.[5] The Blackstone river reached a stage of 21.8 feet (6.6 m) in Woonsocket, which remains the flood of record; flood stage is 9.0 feet (2.7 m).[6]
The Blackstone River has a long association with industry and a resulting legacy of pollution. A 1900 Massachusetts Department of Public Health report said of the river: "The Department finds that the condition of the Blackstone River is offensive throughout its course, from Worcester to the state line at Blackstone. The condition of the stream is likely to grow worse until effective measures are completed for removing from the river much of the pollution which it now receives."[7] In 1965, the Water Resources Planning Act created the Water Resources Council Commission and seven river basin commissions. The inaugural celebration of Earth Day in 1970 further increased public support for remediation projects. While environmental activists in the Blackstone River Valley were already organizing cleanup efforts locally, in 1971, a formalized plea for action was made to the then Governor of Rhode Island, Democrat Frank Licht. In December 1971, political support was pledged at the state level. The Blackstone River Watershed Association, just two years old at the time, was designated to lead the effort. By April 1972, support among the public for cleaning the river was increasingly widespread. The Providence Journal Promotions Director Leighton Authier coined the term "Project ZAP", and a documentary film chronicling the clean-up effort entitled "Operation ZAP" was produced in 1974 by a Boston University professor of communications. Rhode Island Congressman Fernand St Germain said of the project, "ZAP is an example for the nation."[citation needed] Soon after ZAP, the 1972 federal Clean Water Act (CWA) passed Congress, offering even more protections for the ecological health of the Blackstone. However, the legacy of pollution did not disappear overnight; in 1990, the United States Environmental Protection Agency called the Blackstone "the most polluted river in the country with respect to toxic sediments."[1]
Early industries discharged a variety of pollutants into the river, including dyes from textile mills and heavy metals and solvents from metal and woodworking industries.[7] Much of this early pollution lies trapped in sediments behind historic dams on the river and continues to affect the ecosystem today. More recent pollution can be traced to the Upper Blackstone Water Pollution Abatement District (UBWPAD),[8] the wastewater treatment plant for Worcester, Massachusetts, and surrounding communities, which discharges into the Blackstone. A 2005 report written by the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management said, "... [the] UBWPAD, North Attleboro, and Attleboro WWTFs play a significant role in the ability to improve water quality in the Providence and Seekonk River system [into which the Blackstone discharges], and efforts to reduce their nitrogen inputs should be initiated as soon as possible."[9] In September 2010, the Conservation Law Foundation, citing this report, filed a lawsuit claiming that the discharge permit issued to the UBWPAD by the Environmental Protection Agency is not "sufficient to meet state water quality standards".[10]
River cleanup is still underway, and today the Blackstone is considered a Class C river (suitable only for "secondary contact" activities like boating) for much of its length.[11]
Processing problems at the Woonsocket sewage treatment plant prompted no-contact advisories for the Rhode Island portion of the river in 2022.[12]
Crossings
Blackstone River at Ashton, RI (Ashton Viaduct)
Below is a list of all crossings over the Blackstone River. The list starts at the headwaters and goes downstream.
^"Blackstone River Hydrograph". National Weather Service - Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service. Archived from the original on 2011-07-21. Retrieved 2011-02-23.
