The Public’s Radio — Legal battle mounts over possible public access to Rhode Island barrier beach
An aerial photo dated circa 1995 of the area of Spring Avenue Extension near The Atlantic Ocean at the end of Spray Rock Road in the Weekapaug section of Westerly. Photo courtesy of Westerly Library & Wilcox Park
Jan 23, 2023
By Alex Nunes — The Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council Rights-of-way Subcommittee will meet Tuesday about a contested path to the shore in Westerly that’s become emblematic of the debate over shoreline access in the Ocean State. If designated public, the path would open a long-closed gateway to one of the most inaccessible, undeveloped beaches in the state.
In recent years, the Spring Avenue Extension right-of-way in Westerly has become one of the more talked about paths to the South County shoreline, even though it’s been out of use for decades.
It’s located at the start of the Quonochontaug Barrier Beach, a 1.7 mile, undeveloped peninsula where no designated public path to the ocean exists and access is restricted in the summer months to local property owners and their guests.
Today, Spring Avenue is blocked by a rusty chain link fence and covered over with vegetation. But striking to many is the fact that it appears as an open right-of-way on town property maps and in dated photos, and you can still find old-timers who recall the days when they walked the right-of-way unobstructed.
To this day, there’s even a row of public parking spaces at the beginning of Spring Avenue, a point Westerly resident and shoreline access advocate Ellen Kane finds telling.
“No one has common sense to think that those spaces were there so people could park and smell the ocean and hear the ocean,” Kane said in an interview. “They parked there so they could walk to the ocean.”
The reason Spring Avenue Extension remains blocked today is simple. While shoreline access advocates insist it’s public, property owners in the affluent and exclusive Weekapaug Fire District say the path belongs to the district, and they have no intent nor obligation to open it up for public use.
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