On Thursday, March 19th, the General Assembly’s port development study commission held its first hearing where researchers from the University of Rhode Island’s Coastal Resources Center presented preliminary results from their Rhode Island Commercial Ports and Harbors inventory study. The most striking finding from the inventory study:

In all of Rhode Island, there are only 62 parcels, representing 756 total acres, that are available and properly zoned for marine industrial growth.

This finding shows that Rhode Island has very little space left for marine industrial growth and that we must protect the few remaining port areas we have.

Read the Providence Journal’s coverage of the hearing.