Boston Globe — Matunuck seawall project, years in the making, nears completion

The seawall under construction along Matunuck Beach Road.GLENN OSMUNDSON

Sep 6, 2022

By Brian Amaral — When it’s done, the wall’s steel, concrete and stone will protect Matunuck Beach Road and the waterline it carries, shoring up access to the 250-property neighborhood there. But for how long?

SOUTH KINGSTOWN — The new stretch of seawall protecting Matunuck Beach Road, years in the making, is nearing completion, with implications for a prized seaside village under threat from erosion.

The project is expected to wrap up by late fall, South Kingstown director of public services Rich Bourbonnais said. When it’s done, the wall will run along the southern side of Matunuck Beach Road from the Ocean Mist beach bar to the trailer park association where it juts out toward the water.

“We have no other way to get to those homes that are all beyond the Mist,” Bourbonnais said. “Everything east of there is isolated. It’s the only access they have.”

Once it’s completed, it will be the relatively quiet culmination of a project that has stirred controversy and litigation in an iconic and erosion-threatened area of South Kingstown for more than a decade.

The project involves driving steel sheet piles about 40 feet into the ground, and capping about five feet of exposed steel with concrete. Workers also put boulders on the ocean side of the wall to protect from scouring.

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