Rare Plants of the Big River Management Area

The Big River Management Area occupies 8600 acres (13.4 square miles) in the towns of West Greenwich, Coventry, East Greenwich, and Exeter in the State of Rhode Island. In 1965 the state began condemning the land under the power of eminent domain for use as a surface water reservoir. The EPA along with many environmental groups opposed the project and the surface water reservoir never came to fruition.

This article is intended to introduce some of the plant life unique to the BRMA. Over the last several years I have conducted numerous botanical inventories on portions of the property in the management area. Photographs, habitat information and state rank are presented.

The BRMA is a haven to several state endangered plants which are found nowhere else in Rhode Island, including Variegated Horsetail, Oak Fern and Collin’s Sedge. In fact BRMA is the only place in New England where Collin’s Sedge occurs. Each of these plants requires a specific habitat without which it could not exist.

Flooding would destroy all life forms including plants, animals and the ecosystems in which they occur. While surface water reservoirs may be a necessity in some cases, we need to consider alternative ways of providing and maintaining an adequate supply of potable water. Conservation alone can save millions of gallons of water. Water is much too valuable a commodity to be used frivolously. It is not necessary, nor is it prudent, to use potable water for extravagant purposes such as watering lawns.. Proper management, that is, wisely restricting the use of drinking water, will significantly conserve our current supply to the point where it would be unnecessary to destroy valuable ecosystems by creating more reservoirs.

Some of the more fragile habitats in the BRMA are also threatened by the use of ATVs, dirt bikes and other motorized vehicles. Off road vehicles are a very real threat to rare plant species.