Though the route was confirmed in Connecticut, many issues remained in Rhode Island, the biggest of which were major environmental concerns about how the freeway would affect the Scituate Reservoir, which is the main drinking water supply for Providence. In an attempt to ease environmental concerns, an alternate route was briefly studied in Rhode Island that would have connected Interstate 84 to the present-day Route 37 freeway. This would have allowed construction of I-84 south of the Scituate Reservoir. Major community opposition caused this plan, as well as all plans for a Hartford-Providence expressway, to be scrapped in the 1980s.