It’s hard to miss the 600-foot-long seawall separating Quidnessett Country Club’s golf course from the salt marshes feeding into Narragansett Bay.

Even larger than the physical barrier is the ideological divide over its presence, showcased during a two-hour-long public hearing before state coastal regulators Tuesday afternoon.

Throngs of pastel-clad country club members descended by busload upon the Rhode Island Department of Administration building to insist the wall, while built without the requisite state permits, was needed to protect not only the iconic 14th hole, but the entire club, including its employees and community beneficiaries. Their impassioned pleas were matched by equal outrage from environmentalists, who blasted the club for knowingly building the illegal structure without permission, jeopardizing sensitive waters and obstructing public access to the shore.

Much of the back-and-forth centered on whether the seawall, constructed illegally in early 2023, should be allowed to stand. But the question before the Rhode Island Resources Management Council is not exactly that.

Instead, the council through its Planning and Procedures Subcommittee is reviewing Quidnessett’s April 12 petition seeking to reclassify a quarter-mile section of waters adjacent to the seawall. The existing, Type 1 “conservation area” designation bans permanent structural barriers because of their potential harms to environmentally sensitive waters and wildlife. Downgrading the water designation to the less stringent, Type 2 “low intensity use” could allow for the stone wall, known as a riprap revetment. Coastal regulators “may” allow for stone seawalls in Type 2 waters, but they don’t have to, as Jim Boyd, former deputy director to the CRMC, pointed out.

Build it first, change map later

And reclassifying the waters fails to address what critics consider the most “egregious” element of the whole debacle: that the country club built the seawall first, then sought permission.

“The only reason that the country club has put forth this petition is to cover up for an illegally contracted wall on their property,” Boyd said Tuesday, speaking for the first time as a member of the public since his retirement from the CRMC two years ago.

Attempting to head off potential pleas of ignorance, Boyd referred to a 2012 application by the club seeking to build a less obtrusive sheet pile barrier in the same spot. The project never moved forward after council staff recommended against the permanent barrier in favor of less damaging “nonstructural” shoreline protection.

A decade later, the stone riprap appeared, seemingly out of thin air. Work on the seawall began in January 2023, following a December storm that caused “significant damage” near the 14th hole, Patti Doyle, a spokesperson for the country club, said in an email on Tuesday night.

Six months later, CRMC and Save the Bay each separately caught wind of the illegal structure.

“I was in complete disbelief,” Mike Jarbeau, Narragansett baykeeper for Save the Bay, said in an interview prior to the Tuesday hearing. “It’s such an egregious violation, such blatant disregard for regulations, that I didn’t believe it at first. I thought, ‘There’s just no way.’”

But there it was, visible from a mile-and-a-half away in Narragansett Bay, Boyd said.

The CRMC in August issued a series of violation notices against the club, demanding they remove the seawall and levying $30,000 in fines. 

Eight months later, the club through its attorney Jennifer Cervenka — who formerly served as chair of the CRMC’s appointed council — submitted a petition asking for the water reclassification.

The April 12 petition points to increased residential development and recreational use in the area, including the Bayview Rehabilitation at Scalabrini nursing home directly north of it, as reason why the waters should be reclassified. 

“Without the flexibility afforded for shoreline protection areas abutting Type 2 Waters, the QCC will certainly lose a critical piece of its historic, 18-hole golf course and result in devastating losses to both its business and members, as well as the thousands of individuals, businesses, and associations across the State that use QCC for professional golf tournaments, charity events, fundraisers, weddings, proms and countless other engagements,” Cervenka wrote in the letter.

Representatives from the club’s 1,000 members and 100-person payroll repeated this exact phrasing in comments to the CRMC Tuesday. 

“I think the perception of country clubs is that they are a very privileged place,” said Peter Chwaliszewski, the club’s head golf professional. “But there’s a lot of employees here that rely on it to provide for their families.”

Changing the design of the 14th hole to move it away from the rising waters, as Boyd suggested, was out of the question to many club members, who praised the unique design by world-renowned golf course architect Geoffrey Cornish.

“It’s a historic landmark,” said Jeffrey Gladstone, a 30-year club member. 

The club, including the 18-hole, par 72 golf course, opened in 1960. It does not have any official state or federal historic designations.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, AG step in

But the waters beside it are no less important, with both state and federal environmental designations indicating their value. The illegal rock wall has also caught the eye of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which in May issued its own violation notice with a corresponding fine of up to $200,000.

The pending petition review for water reclassification has saved the club from forking over any cash on its state or federal fines, for now. But Jeff Willis, executive director of the CRMC, said in an interview after the hearing that agency administrators denied the club’s request for extra time, instead requiring it to come up with a restoration plan for the shoreline by Friday.

The Rhode Island Office of the Attorney General may also get in on the action, having already issued a letter to the CRMC urging it to reject the club’s request and crack down on the illegal action.

“Ruling otherwise would only serve to reward the QCC for illegally constructing first and asking for permission later, and would incentivize other shoreline property owners to do the same” Attorney General Peter Neronha wrote in his June 28 letter.

The CRMC subcommittee is expected to revisit the country club’s request by early September, at which time council staff will have prepared a report with recommended action, Willis said.

If the water type change is approved, the club will apply for the requisite permit to address the pending enforcement against the wall, Doyle said.