CRMC Schedules Public Hearing About Country Club’s Illegally Built Seawall
July 15, 2024
WAKEFIELD, R.I. — A country club’s petition asking coastal regulators to legitimize a seawall erected without state or federal approval has drawn comments of support and opposition from hundreds of members of the public.
In May, the Coastal Resources Management Council voted to begin the rule-making process to change the water type — a coastal development tool similar to municipal zoning found on land — in front of the Quidnessett Country Club to effectively grandfather in a seawall the club erected without the required permits last year. The structure was built to protect the golf course’s par-5, 526-yard 14th hole.
The Quidnessett Country Club (QCC), located along the waterfront in North Kingstown, was issued a notice of violation (NOV) by CRMC last year, which ordered the club to come into compliance and remove the 550-foot-long seawall. Agency staff had been working to resolve the issue until earlier this spring, when the attorney for the country club, former CRMC chair Jennifer Cervenka, submitted a petition that would effectively legitimize the seawall.
A previous application from the country club to build a smaller seawall on the property was rejected by agency staff in October 2012, who found the proposed stone revetment would accelerate coastal erosion in the area.
Opponents of the petition say the seawall has already impacted bluffs and other coastal habitats on the club’s 185-acre property, and sanctioning it would circumvent the authority of CRMC to regulate coastal development.
“QCC’s request would require CRMC to ignore its own regulations and prior findings to this property in favor of somehow allowing a blatantly illegal seawall, which is not likely even permissible under a Type 2 water classification,” Attorney General Peter Neronha wrote in his comments opposing the petition.
Other entities opposed to the petition include Save The Bay, the New England chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, the North Kingstown Town Council, the Land Conservancy of North Kingstown, the town’s Harbor and Conservation commissions, and James Boyd, a former deputy director of CRMC who retired in 2022.
Critics of CRMC’s structure, including the attorney general and Save The Bay, have also pointed to the country club’s petition as a prime reason the state’s coastal regulatory agency is in dire need of reform. The reason CRMC could even consider going against its own regulations, say reform advocates, is because of the part-time, volunteer, politically appointed 10-person council that has unilateral power to make decisions for the agency and even override staff recommendations.
QCC submitted hundreds of letters of support from town residents for the seawall, many of them overwhelmingly in the form of a boilerplate letter with accompanying resident signatures.
The form letter praises the club’s 18-hole golf course, and the protection the seawall affords the golf course from coastal erosion.
“Due to aggressive coastal erosion along its signature 14th hole, the Club is threatened with irreversible damage to both its course and business,” read the form letters. “An 18-hole golf course is necessary to the Club’s operations, it’s ability to retain and attract new members and its continued hosting of professional tournaments.”
CRMC received some 200 of these form letters during the public comment period for the petition back in June. The club’s petition also received letters of support from the East Greenwich and North Kingstown chambers of commerce, the Bayview Rehabilitation at Scalabrini, and individual town residents.
CRMC wasn’t the only government agency to issue a NOV. The Army Corps of Engineers issued one for the club’s failure to get federal permits for the illegally built riprap.
The seawall also got the attention of the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management. In an interoffice memo dated June 21, DEM’s Office of Water Resources asked the agency’s compliance division to investigate whether QCC filled waters of the state without a permit, in violation of Rhode Island regulations.
Meanwhile, state regulators also received dozens of additional letters from members of the public, not specifying a stance on the petition, but asking for an in-person hearing to be held by CRMC to hear additional comments.
That request has been granted. CRMC has scheduled a public hearing on the Quidnessett Country Club’s petition for Tuesday, July 23, at 3 p.m. in the council’s usual meeting location, the Conference Room in the Department of Administration in Providence.
Recently I went to a CRMC hearing on fossil fuel pipelines. I told them the people of RI were tiered of them always sxiding withthe rich against the people. and that is why it is time to eliminate the DRMC and turn it into an actual state agency. The clowns?criminals on the CRMC board have alrewady demonstrated they have only one value, he who has the gold makes the rules. Tear down the wall and eliminate the CRMC so we do not have to go through this cflown show again and again.
The wall is made of rocks; rocks that the cosmos started creating about 4.5 billion years ago. Lordy mama, leave these folks alone. There are worthy fights to pick, and some that are just silly. This fight is the latter.