ecoRI News — Johnson’s Pond Dispute Heads to Federal Court

Once a popular summer destination for water activities, the water level in Johnson’s Pond is the center of a longstanding tug-of-war between homeowners and the company that manages the water level behind the dam. (Rob Smith/ecoRI News)

July 29, 2022

By Rob Smith / ecoRI News Staff — The long-running quarrel between a private company and Coventry, R.I., residents over the water levels in Johnson’s Pond is going to court.

Soscia Holdings LLC, the company that owns and operates the dam at Flat River Reservoir, more commonly known as Johnson’s Pond, filed a lawsuit July 18 in U.S. District Court against the state of Rhode Island and the Department of Environmental Management (DEM). In its filing, the company accuses state officials of violating its due process rights and illegally seizing its property, and singles out DEM for interfering in its business relationship with the town.

“Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management’s actions … were taken intentionally and improperly and with malice in flagrant disregard of Plaintiff’s contractual and legislatively granted rights,” Patrick Doughtery, attorney for Soscia Holdings, wrote in the filing.

Earlier in July DEM began to enforce the provisions of a law signed by the governor in late June that requires the owners and operators of a dam with more than 1,400 normal storage acre-feet of water to obtain a permit from state regulators to adjust the water levels on-site. The state environmental agency said it would promulgate rules for the permit, but in the meantime dam owners are expected to keep water in holding ponds at their “historic levels.”

There are only six dams impacted by the new legislation, including the one at Flat River Reservoir. Two are owned and managed by DEM — the dams at Olney Pond in Lincoln and Stillwater Reservoir in Smithfield. The dam at Upper Pascoag Reservoir, the biggest in terms of normal storage acre-feet of water, is owned by a dam management district operated by the town of Burrillville.

The dam at Waterman Lake in Smithfield and Glocester is run by a nonprofit. Only one other dam is operated by a private company, the Dudley Development Corporation.

DEM issued a cease-and-desist order to Soscia Holdings on July 13, ordering the company to reduce the streamflow from the pond and raise the water in the pond to spillway level.

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