Rhode Island Current — Forced to submit a plan to remove illegal seawall, Quidnessett still backs water reclassification

A man fishes along the shoreline immediately north of the illegal wall built by the Quidnessett Country Club in North Kingstown. The wall makes the spot no longer accessible to the public from the south. (Save the Bay)

July 29, 2024

By Nancy Lavin — Country club restoration plans appear ‘incomplete,’ says Save the Bay

Faced with the threat of additional fines if it failed to meet the state’s July 26 deadline, Quidnessett Country Club submitted plans to remove an illegal seawall from its property.

But the plans obtained by Rhode Island Current do not reflect the kind of expert, in-depth restoration required for a sensitive coastal feature.

Indeed, most of the two-page email Quidnessett’s attorney, Jennifer Cervenka, submitted to the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council focuses on defending the stone seawall the country club built without permission along its northeastern property line in January 2023. Three sentences of the email are dedicated to the seawall removal, which would be taken down in phases starting with the portion closest to the water, according to the letter.

Laura Dwyer, a CRMC spokesperson, said Monday that the agency is still reviewing the submission and could not immediately comment on its contents.

But Mike Jarbeau, Narragansett Baykeeper for Save the Bay, was not impressed.

“This seems very incomplete to me,” he said of Quidnessett’s plans. “It does not appear to have met the directive of the enforcement staff, and honestly, it doesn’t appear that the country club is taking enforcement seriously.”

Jarbeau did not think state regulators would dub the submission complete, either.

But, he added, “This is such an unprecedented violation that I just don’t know.”

Patti Doyle, a spokesperson for Quidnessett did not answer specific questions about potentially missing or incomplete parts of the plan.

…