It’s spring and the alewives are again swimming up the River and soon another group of swimmers also will be returning to the waters of Narrow River. At 9 am Saturday, June 19th the Fifth Annual Narrow River Turnaround Swim will start from the beach at the University of Rhode Island (URI) Crew Team’s Campanella Rowing Center off Walmsley Lane in North Kingstown, RI, round a buoy half a mile down the River and return back to the Crew Team beach. Registration forms for the 1 mile swim can be found on the NRPA web site, www.narrowriver.org . The swim has grown from sixty eight swimmers the inaugural year to one hundred and twenty-five swimmers last year! Due to the popularity of the swim and because it is limited this year to one hundred fifty swimmers, pre-registration by June 9th is strongly encouraged.

 

The swim raises awareness of the river as a scenic area, a place to swim, and also promotes open water swimming as a lifetime activity to local residents. Plus it raises monies for the Narrow River Preservation Association which will be used to help fund NRPA’s education, preservation and protection programs. One program is the River Watch volunteer monitoring program, now starting its 18^th year, which has been testing and documenting the water quality of the River. Elizabeth Herron from URI’s Watershed Watch program said the following about the Narrow River River Watch data at the Turnaround swim site: “according to the long term fecal coliform data, and the much more limited enterococci data, the lower pond area does not exceed recreational contact levels for either indicator species even following heavy rainfall.”

 

Since the inception of NRPA, thanks to NRPA and others, water quality in Narrow River has improved. In the words of Narragansett Elementary School Physical Education teacher Paul McCaffery, who along with URI coach of swimming and diving Mick Westkott co-chair the swim, “The title Turnaround was indicative of the path we chose for the course of the swim and also for the course of the river, the Narrow River has been turned around from one that wasn’t healthy to one that is.”

 

We are pleased to be returning to URI Crew Team Rowing Center, a beautiful spot on Narrow River’s Lower Pond, and also the location of LaFarge Point Park. WER LaFarge was one of the founders of NRPA in 1970 and remained active in NRPA until his untimely death from cancer in 1994. He bequeathed a piece of his farm as land for the Rowing Center. The Crew Team Rowing Center will again provide invaluable support.

 

Many comments were received about how well organized and safety-conscious the swim was and the same committee will again run it. In addition to Paul and Mick, other people on the Swim Committee are: Felix Sarubbi, Jason McNamee, Lori Pugh, Perry Moylan, Richard Grant, Pat Gannon, Shelagh Donohue, Karen DeQuattro, Owen Devine and Veronica Berounsky. They will be assisted by the many friends, relatives, and colleagues who have offered to return to help make the swim run smoothly and efficiently again.

 

Download the Swim Application