PODCAST By Colleen Cronin, Joanna Detz, and Rob Smith — Beach season may have ended, but conflicts over shoreline access have not. ecoRI News reporters Colleen Cronin and Rob Smith break down pending and settled lawsuits, and explain recent legislation that determines where the public beach begins and where private property ends.

By Frank Carini — … This year, longtime debate about the control of an access path — so-called “Fort Road,” the name locals use to refer to the pathway from Watch Hill to Napatree Point — to the popular Westerly destination finally spilled over

By Rob Smith — The calls for reforming the state’s coastal management agency are growing stronger in the General Assembly. Last week, members of the Senate Environment and Agriculture Committee heard a package of five bills to overhaul the Coastal Resources Management Council, the regulatory agency responsible for permitting offshore wind, aquaculture, and development along Rhode Island’s more than 400 miles of coastline.

By Frank Carini — Now that the Rhode Island General Assembly has found its 2023 legislative groove, Save The Bay has begun advocating for what it says is an “ambitious policy agenda.”

By Frank Carini — For years the board that oversees the Ocean State’s coastal regulations has been operating with vacancies, and last month it lost a long-serving member.

By Rob Smith — A prominent resident and shoreline activist is charging the Buttonwoods Beach Association with violating the state’s open records law over documents related to a traffic stop in 2019.

By Cynthia Drummond — … An issue that has elicited some of the strongest public engagement in Rhode Island in recent years, access to the shoreline in coastal towns, including Westerly, has been the subject of in-depth coverage by ecoRI News.

By Colleen Cronin — The sound of thousands of mussels moving on conveyor belts and clanking through sorting machines almost drowned out Greg Silkes as he tried to explain how the shellfish get from the ocean, through the processing plant, to plates around North America.

By Frank Carini — … “They have a guard posted to be sure no one walks across the walkway to the beach,” he wrote. “Next to their beach entrance is a public right of way that is blocked by a fence. … It is on town property designated as a road on older town plats.”

By Rob Smith — The long-running quarrel between a private company and Coventry, R.I., residents over the water levels in Johnson’s Pond is going to court.

By Rob Smith — With summer approaching, the state’s activists are gearing up for battle over that most Rhode Island of issues: beach parking.

By Rob Smith — Next step: Panel will send a final report to the General Assembly with its recommendations

By Rob Smith — State officials should be investing more in coastal protection and management, according to the legislature’s study commission on reorganizing the Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC).

Interceding in a case raising significant issues involving government transparency in environmental disputes, four organizations recently filed a “friend of the court” brief in Rhode Island Supreme Court in a long-standing controversy involving the proposed expansion of Champlin’s Marina & Resort on Block Island.

By Rob Smith — Rhode Island beachgoers could find themselves with extra room to enjoy the Ocean State’s shoreline next summer. The House special commission studying lateral shoreline access is winding down its work, and most of its members agree the boundary between public shore and private property needs to change.

By Rob Smith — 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.

By Cynthia Drummond — A recent assessment of the breachway that connects Quonochontaug Pond to Block Island Sound found the channel, stabilized with rock jetties, and the salt pond are in relatively good shape but are showing signs of deterioration.

By Rob Smith — Rhode Islanders got their first crack at public comment at a recent meeting of the House commission to study shoreline access…

By Roger Warburton — For Rhode Islanders, an increase in flood insurance rates is coming, perhaps as soon as next year. And, perhaps surprisingly, to inland property owners as well as those along the coast…

By Caitlin Faulds — The country’s largest flood insurer is changing how it analyzes risk, and it could signal a reckoning for coastal communities.