PROVIDENCE — The state of Rhode Island is lawyering up in its bid to remove an illegally built seawall in North Kingstown.

Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha filed a lawsuit in Superior Court against Quidnessett Country Club and its associated contractors Tuesday, arguing the club, by constructing the 600-foot seawall, violated the Environmental Rights Act, impaired public trust natural resources, and threatened Narragansett Bay by accelerating habitat loss for aquatic plants and animals in the area.

In its suit, Neronha’s office asked the court to issue a preliminary injunction removing the seawall and ordering the restoration of the coastal habitat and shoreline damaged by its construction. In a statement, Neronha pledged to fight until the seawall came down.

“Quidnessett County Club has engaged in actions that not only erode our shorelines, but also erode the rule of law,” Neronha said. “Companies prioritizing profits over the public good is nothing new, and unfortunately, Rhode Island has seen its fair share of business decisions being made at the expense of our natural resources.”

Neronha doesn’t just name the North Kingstown club in his legal bid to enforce Rhode Island’s environmental protections. The suit also names up to 30 anonymous contractors, the businesses associated with Quidnessett Country Club and its owners, as well as any of the actual contractors who helped design and build the seawall, who still remain unknown.

Attorney Robin Main, who has represented the club before state regulators in recent years, declined to comment on the suit.

The lawsuit is the latest chapter in a three-year saga between state regulators and Quidnessett Country Club over the seawall. The wall was first built sometime in 2023 without state authorization or permits, in a bid to protect the club’s golf course from the coastal erosion forces in Narragansett Bay.

The wall went unnoticed by state regulators until someone tipped off the Coastal Resources Management Council, the chief regulator of coastal development in Rhode Island, and the agency that handles coastal infrastructure projects like seawalls, in August 2023.

After an inspection CRMC issued the club a cease-and-desist order and entered into talks with Quidnessett Country Club to find an equitable solution. When the talks went nowhere, the club petitioned CRMC to change its water-type designation to one that would allow approval of the seawall retroactively.

The club lost that battle when CRMC’s executive board voted to deny its petition for a water-type change in early 2025. CRMC hauled Quidnessett Country Club back before it last July for an enforcement hearing and ordered it to come up with an acceptable restoration plan within 30 days.

Quidnessett Country Club missed the deadline and opened its own lawsuit against CRMC last year. CRMC meanwhile took until this past January to launch its own countersuit against the club. Those lawsuits are still in Superior Court, pending a motion to combine the separate suits.

A spokesperson for CRMC did not return a request for comment.

Environmental advocates like Save The Bay have long been pushing for the state to do more to enforce laws and regulations against the club, worrying the state’s hands-off approach to enforcement would spur more bad actors to break environmental laws.

“The lawsuit sends a very strong signal to everyone in the state that everyone needs to abide by the laws, and that there will be penalties if you don’t,” said Topher Hamblett, executive director of Save The Bay.

Hamblett and other environmental groups have long been critical of the CRMC and its inability to enforce the state’s environmental protections. It’s why groups like Save The Bay have been pushing lawmakers to reform the agency and abolish its politically appointed 10-member executive council.

For advocates like Hamblett, the Quidnessett Country Club saga is a key reason why CRMC in its current form does not work.

“I think had the council been doing its job all along, this would not be necessary,” Hamblett said. “But the council continues to fail every way on Quidnessett and other issues before it.”