Author: narravideo Page 1 of 5

After a particularly rough winter, Stillhouse Cove Park and its surroundings need treatment. In particular, the mounds of snow deposited in the Park left behind salt, grit, and damaged turf. In the photo below, Donna Fieldman, EWPA board member, is seen spreading gypsum to mitigate the effects of road salt and ice melt and encourage the grass root system.

Every two years or so, EWPA must clean the Stillhouse Cove Park benches that our neighbors so enjoy. Below, we see Colin Murphy and Richard Finlay, of the EWPA board, power washing the lichen that has accumulated on a bench and its base.

It has been almost four years since we unveiled the End of the Line trolley monument and the weather has taken its toll on the metal sculpture. We just had it sanded and recoated and it looks as good as new.

Early Spring is also time to cut back the ornamental grasses that line the Cove and are present in the Ocean Avenue rotary and behind the End of the Line monument. In the photo below, Donna is trimming the Shenandoah Switch Grasses at the End of the Line. But Donna, Colin, and Richard cannot do this work alone. EWPA needs volunteers to join its site committee and get their hands dirty. There are critical tasks to be fulfilled from Spring to Fall. If you are interested, fill out the form here: https://stillhousecove.org/volunteer-with-us/

Almost every morning this Winter, Tom Wojick heads down to Stillhouse Cove to capture spectacular images of this year’s scenes of snow and ice.

On June 24, 2025, Save the Bay’s Executive Director Topher Hamblett and Restoration Coordinator Wenley Ferguson hosted a site visit to Stillhouse Cove by  members of the national board of Restoring America’s Estuaries who were visiting Rhode Island  for their national conference.  

Members of the group from Texas, San Francisco, Maryland, North Carolina, Long Island, and other distant coastal communities learned about the decades- long collaborative effort of EWPA and STB to preserve Stillhouse Cove’s salt marsh and improve the water quality of Narragansett Bay.

Senator Lammis J. Vargas met with members of the Edgewood Waterfront Preservation Association board on June 25, 2025 to present a RI Senate grant to support their work at Stillhouse Cove.

American beach grass (Ammophila breviligulata) helps preserve the sandy areas that guard the salt marsh at Stillhouse Cove. Erstwhile members of the EWPA board, Donna Fieldman, Greta Francis, and Colin Murphy and former board member Joe Cooney, recently planted 200 “plugs” of beach grass in an exposed area near Strathmore Place. These will have to be nurtured and watered during the coming summer to turn into established plants such as those pictured above.

THE INFILTRATION AREA ON NARRAGANSETT BLVD., BELOW THE TROLLEY MONUMENT, POSES CONSTANT CHALLENGES.

Because of its steep banks, it very difficult to maintain the grass on the area. In an experiment, the EWPA just planted several plugs of special drought resistant Zoysia grass. We will monitor their survival in the coming months.