The Saugatucket River, with its long history of use in industry and urban setting, unfortunately has impaired water quality. Stormwater runoff from impervious surfaces near the river (parking lots, roofs, sidewalks, etc.) carries with it bacteria from pet and other animal waste, fertilizers, pesticides/herbicides, oils from vehicles, road salt, and many other pollutants.
The Saugatucket River at the dock next to the public parking lot off Main St. has been monitored for water quality by volunteers with the University of Rhode Island Watershed Watch (URI WW) program and Salt Ponds Coalition for many years. Other sites in the river were also monitored years ago, but haven’t been for some time. FOS has restarted monitoring on two of these dormant sites: Saugatucket Pond and the Saugatucket River at Saugatucket Rd.
The data from all of this monitoring can be accessed through the Google Map below, which also shows the locations of water quality testing sites of the Wood-Pawcatuck Watershed Association (blue placemarks), Salt Ponds Coalition (green placemarks), Save the Bay (pink placemarks), and in the Coastal watershed (yellow placemarks). Click on a placemark to access information pages (PDF format) with links to analytical data for each site (except perhaps the most recent year if it has not yet been received/processed). All samples were analyzed and data were provided by URI WW. Friends of the Saugatucket hopes to resume monitoring of additional dormant sites as funding allows.
To view results of our one-day bacteria sampling “blitz” events conducted on the Saugatucket River and tributaries, click here (9/15/21), here (wet-weather 9/15/22), and here (dry-weather 10/12/22).
To view the 2022 bacteria data for the Saugatucket River at Saugatucket Rd., click here; for Saugatucket Pond, click here; and for the Saugatucket River just upstream of Main St. dam (listed as “Pt Judith Trib – Saugatucket River”), click here.
To view the 2023 bacteria data for the Saugatucket River at Saugatucket Rd., click here; for Saugatucket Pond, click here; and for the Saugatucket River just upstream of Main St. dam (listed as “Pt Judith Trib – Saugatucket River”), click here.
Friends of the Saugatucket 