ecoRI News — Initial Public Comment Shows Support for CRMC Changes

Jan 21, 2022

By Rob Smith / ecoRI News contributor

PROVIDENCE — Rhode Island residents believe reform is needed for the beleaguered Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC), according to public comment solicited by the House study commission on the agency. Members of the public recently submitted more than a dozen oral comments and an avalanche of some 100 correspondences to the study commission, all in support of doing something to reorganize CRMC.

“A family in Woonsocket has just as much interest in state waters as any waterfront home or yacht owner,” Matt Behan, a Westerly resident and owner of an eponymous oyster farm, said during a Jan. 19 meeting of the special House commission.

The public comments also took aim at the agency’s leadership. Unlike its counterpart, the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, CRMC isn’t technically a cabinet level-agency. All final decisions and application approvals flow through a 10-member voting council, most of them political appointees decided by the governor.

The council has landed CRMC in hot water more than once and has blazed a controversial history for itself by overriding recommendations from agency staff, even though few council appointees have a background in coastal management.

Most recently, the council allowed Champlin’s Marina on Block Island to expand 170 feet into Great Salt Pond, a decision that was made behind closed doors and was later blocked by the state’s Supreme Court. Litigation over the affair is still ongoing.

“It’s astonishing how new council members can take a whole term to learn the issues CRMC handles,” said Michael Woods of the New England chapter of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers. “It hampers the ability [for council members] to have informed votes on issues.”

Local resident and Uprise RI founder Steve Ahlquist told the commission members they needed to consider social justice when reforming the agency.

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