Sims Metal, an international metal recycler with a facility in Providence, hosted an Earth Day clean-up on land and sea of Collier Point Park last Saturday.
From its name, you d assume that Public Street was intended for the public.
But before the attorney general s office intervened last winter, fences blocked off the road s eastern terminus where it meets the Providence River. People from low-income neighborhoods in South Providence and Washington Park were cut off from one of the few places where they could walk to the waterfront and fish.
Now, the long-overlooked stretch of gravel and asphalt,
which attorneys say should have been open all along, will be permanently protected as a public access point. The Coastal Resources Management Council voted unanimously on Tuesday night to designate Public Street as a shoreline right-of-way, a move that will prevent it from falling into private hands and becoming off-limits forever.