PORTSMOUTH — There are fish in Upper Melville Pond that, in the coming weeks, are going to have a slightly more complicated life than they anticipated.

They will be caught. Not by anglers in folding chairs with coolers and quiet hopes, but by scientists with clipboards, anesthetics, and a professional interest in what, exactly, is accumulating inside them. It is, depending on your perspective, either a public health study or a very bad day to be a trout.

Beginning May 4, the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management and the Department of Health, in collaboration with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Roger Williams University, and the Town of Portsmouth, will conduct what officials say is the first study of its kind in the state: an effort to understand how PFAS — those famously persistent “forever chemicals” formally known as Per-and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances — build up in stocked fish.

To make this happen, Thurston Gray Pond, formerly known as Upper Melville Pond, will be closed to fishing through July 2. This is less about punishing anglers and more about preserving the experiment. The fish, after all, cannot be both data points and dinner.

Lower Melville Pond, for those who prefer their fishing without a side of scientific scrutiny, will remain open, though it will not be stocked during the study period — a kind of aquatic control group, minus the fish.

The ponds themselves have a backstory that feels distinctly Rhode Island: picturesque, functional, and faintly haunted by history. They were built by the U.S. Navy as drinking water reservoirs for Naval Station Newport and sit near the former Melville Fuel Defense Support Point, where firefighting foam containing PFAS was once used with enthusiasm and, at the time, little suspicion.

That suspicion has since hardened into data. Sampling by DEM found elevated levels of PFAS in both ponds, prompting a closer look at what that means for fish — and, by extension, for people who eat them.

Hence the trout.

Over the course of two months, researchers will periodically collect the stocked fish, anesthetize them, clip a small piece of fin tissue, and send samples off to labs at RWU and the EPA. Water and sediment will also be tested, because PFAS tends to get everywhere.

The goal is straightforward, even if the methods are not: determine how quickly these chemicals accumulate in fish tissue. The answer will help guide future decisions about public health and environmental management, which is a polite way of saying: How worried should we be, and what should we do about it?

Results are expected to be finalized next year and will help guide efforts to minimize PFAS exposure. 

Opening day still on

The study was originally scheduled to begin earlier, but the Blizzard of ’26 — because of course there was a blizzard — pushed things back. Officials say the revised timing avoids interfering with opening day of trout season, a small but meaningful nod to the rhythms of local life.

The work comes at no cost to the Town of Portsmouth, with funding provided by DEM and RIDOH.

And so, for a brief stretch of spring turning into summer, Upper Melville Pond will be quieter than usual. No lines cast, no small talk about bait. Just a group of fish, minding their business, and a group of humans, trying to figure out what that business has been doing to them.

For more information on DEM programs and initiatives, visit www.dem.ri.gov.