More than 100 days after state coastal regulators verbally agreed to crack down on Quidnessett Country Club for failing to remove a rock wall from its shoreline, they’re backing up their words with legal action.
The Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC) filed a counterclaim against the North Kingstown country club in Providence County Superior Court Tuesday. It wants a judge to force the country club to remove the 600-foot stone wall built without permission roughly three years ago. The 17-page filing was submitted in response to one of three lawsuits the country club has filed against the coastal panel in the ongoing dispute over how to restore the shoreline of its property — and whether the wall even needs to be taken down.
The country club initially built the buffer to shield the 14th hole of its signature golf course from coastal erosion, defying state coastal rules that prohibit permanent structures in environmentally sensitive areas. After being caught by state regulators in August 2023, the country club initially sought retroactive permission by arguing for less stringent environmental regulations in the area.
The politically appointed coastal panel denied the request in January 2024, setting off a debate over how Quidnessett should remove the wall and return the shoreline to its preexisting conditions. All seven plans submitted by Quidnessett were rejected by CRMC staff because they failed to meet coastal requirements.
During the back-and-forth with coastal regulators, Quidnessett turned to the courts, with a trio of lawsuits alleging procedural violations and challenging the legitimacy of the agency’s shoreline restoration requirements.
The country club’s most recent complaint, filed Oct. 23 in Providence County Superior Court, asked a judge to reverse the CRMC’s enforcement order, contending that the dispute should be referred to an administrative hearing officer under the agency’s own guidelines, while labeling coastal regulators’ conditions for the location and slope of a natural barrier to replace the rock wall as “arbitrary and capricious.”
The agency in its counterclaim denied these allegations, instead pointing to Quidnessett’s defiance despite an escalating series of written and verbal warnings and threats of fines.
“QCC has quibbled with CRMC over how the property should be restored and ignored a CRMC order requiring QCC to restore the property,” the counterclaim, filed by Anthony DeSisto, the CRMC’s legal counsel, states.
The counterclaim also warns of “irreparable harms” to the coastal marsh habitat and public access if the wall is not removed. It seeks general injunctive relief from the court to force Quidnessett to remove the wall and restore the shoreline.
Attorneys for the CRMC also plan to seek a faster, temporary court order via a second submission for a preliminary injunction, Mark Hartmann, another attorney for the CRMC, said during the agency’s meeting Tuesday. The preliminary injunction request had not been filed as of Wednesday.
Robin Main, an attorney representing Quidnessett, declined to comment when reached by email Wednesday.
Jed Thorp, advocacy director for Save the Bay, was skeptical the wall would come down any time soon. Although the CRMC has asked the court to order Quidnessett to remove the wall, its plea for for urgency is weakened by the fact that three years have passed since the wall was built.
Also unresolved: Quidnessett’s original legal argument that the dispute is best resolved by a CRMC hearing officer.
“Is a judge going to make them take the wall down when the court hasn’t yet ruled on whether it needs to go to a hearing officer?” Thorp said in an interview Wednesday. “With that question outstanding, I don’t see this being resolved quickly.”
Thorp maintained that the CRMC waited too long to take action, ignoring the recommendations of its own expert staff and mounting pressure by Save the Bay.
Yet Thorp credited Save the Bay’s Dec. 10 email to coastal regulators, urging the council to “end its delay game,” and a Jan. 12 ecoRI News story for prompting the CRMC to finally take legal action.
“My guess is, they knew they had a meeting coming up, they saw that ecoRI article and our letter admonishing them and said, ‘we better get on this,’” Thorp said.
Laura Dwyer, a spokesperson for the CRMC, did not return requests for comment Wednesday.
This story was originally published by the Rhode Island Current.
