The Public’s Radio — Watch Hill group says it ‘cannot legally’ guarantee public shoreline access under lighthouse property transfer
The Watch Hill Lighthouse property in Westerly, RI. Alex Nunes - The Public’s Radio
August 23, 2023
By Alex Nunes — The disclosure contradicts characterizations of an agreement made public in July by Rhode Island U.S. Senator Jack Reed.
The Watch Hill Lighthouse Keepers Association says it would be unable to guarantee public access to an historic property and popular fishing area if the land were transferred from the federal government to the private non-profit in the application submitted by the organization to the National Park Service for ownership of the Watch Hill Lighthouse property in Westerly.
The document was obtained by The Public’s Radio through a Freedom of Information Act request earlier this month.
In July, Rhode Island U.S. Sen. Jack Reed announced the Lighthouse Keepers had been selected to become the new owners of the Coast Guard’s Watch Hill Lighthouse and surrounding land under a program enabled by the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act intended to transfer surplus federal lighthouse properties to nonprofits and state and local governments.
That announcement July 9 prompted outcry from shoreline access advocates who fear the transfer would threaten public access in a coastal area they say is being increasingly privatized. The news also led the Westerly Town Council to pass a resolution last month seeking ownership of the lighthouse property land by the town instead of giving it to the Watch Hill Lighthouse Keepers Association, or WHLKA.
The Lighthouse Keepers says it intends to maintain public access at the property and statements being made by critics about the impending transfer are unfounded. But in a letter submitted to the National Park Service in response to a request for more information on public access to the property, an attorney for the Lighthouse Keepers, Jacqueline O. Kaufman, of the Connecticut-based firm Carmody Law, says there is “no express access easement of record to the Property” through a presumably private road leading from the Watch Hill village to the Watch Hill Lighthouse property.
In the May 31, 2022, letter, Kaufman says “should a question in the application require commitment from the WHLKA to provide public access, as of today, it cannot legally do so…”
…