Block Island has seen its share of milestones in the past several years: the construction of the Wind Farm, the purchase of the power company, and the installation of the Community Anchor Institution high-speed broadband network.
Another game-changing moment came this summer when the Lark Hotels group proposed, and was approved for the building of an employee housing complex called The Grove in the downtown area.
At the joint meeting between the Town Council and the Water and Sewer Commissions, the Grove project received final approval for the allocation of 6,800 gallons of water and sewage use every day.
Town regulations and ordinances requires that any allocation over 2,000 gallons a day require approval from the Town Council and the Water Commission, which had granted approval at a previous meeting.
While the members of all three groups, as well as the Water and Sewer companies superintendents, felt that both the Water and Sewer Companies could easily handle this allocation for The Grove, the request made the members realize that the town needed to start thinking about how it could handle such large requests in the future.
To start, on the recommendation of Water Company Supt. John Breunig, the