Projo — Sept. 9 deadline looms for ruling on controversial Block Island marina deal

An aerial view of Champlin’s Marina on Block Island. A Superior Court judge is weighing the validity of a settlement that would permit an expansion of the facility. Erik Elwell

Aug 26, 2021

By Jim Hummel / The Hummel Report — The mediated settlement of a controversial marina expansion on Block Island was a common-sense solution to nearly two decades of litigation. Or, it was a secret backroom deal that violated state law and excluded opponents who had fought the proposal every step of the way.

Those two narratives played out in Kent County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey A. Lanphear’s fourth-floor courtroom over 2½ weeks beginning in late July. Lanphear is under a looming deadline from the Rhode Island Supreme Court to determine whether the settlement is valid.

The expansion, first proposed in 2003, would have taken four acres of the Great Salt Pond, extending the pier 240 more feet into the water and added 3,000 feet of pier to the existing 6,000 feet. It also would have added 140 vessels to the 240 already allowed. Opponents were concerned, among other things, about the effect it would have on the town’s mooring field, and they mobilized from the beginning.

That led to dozens of hearings, then years of litigation that wound up in the Rhode Island Supreme Court in 2020.

From Supreme Court justice to witness

The Hummel Report, in an investigation published Feb. 7 in The Providence Sunday Journal, detailed the events leading to what a lawyer for marina opponents called a “lawless attempt to fix litigation.” He pointed the finger at the state’s Coastal Resources Management Council and retired Supreme Court Chief Justice Frank J. Williams, who helped broker the agreement.

…