R.I. attorney general calls for replacing coastal council, citing its handling of golf course seawall – The Boston Globe

“I’m grateful that the Army Corps has stepped up and seen the problem at Quidnessett,” Neronha said. “I will say that our office is looking at that matter very, very closely. And if we need to intervene in any action, or bring an action, then we will do that.”

The country club has filed a petition asking the state Coastal Resources Management Council to change the classification of the waters near the golf course and to thereby provide permission for the seawall after the fact. The council has begun a rule-making process to entertain that proposal.

But Neronha said the council should have dismissed the club’s petition and taken decisive enforcement action.

“To change it to Type 2 waters, which in theory would allow this thing, I mean this is doing legal gymnastics to try to bless an end run around Rhode Island law to the detriment of Rhode Islanders,” he said. “Frankly, it’s outrageous.”

He said voters should be asking their elected leaders where they stand on this issue. “Far too often on issues that really impact Rhode Islanders, leadership in some quarters is far too quiet,” he said.

The country club’s lawyer has told state regulators that the uses of the waters where the wall was built have changed since they were originally designated as so-called Type 1 conservation waters. The club contends the waters should be designated as Type 2, or low-intensity-use, and those types of waters have fewer restrictions.

The Coastal Resources Management Council has issued a notice of proposed rulemaking, gathering public comments and recommendations about the country club’s petition.

But Neronha said, “The answer is not to change the rules after the fact, to try to make legal what is in the first place illegal.”

Rather, he said, “This is the way this should work: They build the wall without permission, they get a notice of violation, they get an order to remove it. If they don’t remove it, the attorney general joins the action, we go to court, we try to get a court order to remove it. If we can’t get the court order to remove it, then we take it to the (Rhode Island) Supreme Court.”

He said the Coastal Resources Management has a track record of ignoring staff recommendations and making these kinds of controversial decisions. For example, he cited a years-long legal battle over a failed proposal to expand a Block Island marina.

“The amount of work that my office spends trying to fix the CRMC’s poor decision making is far too many,” Neronha said.

The long-term solution, he said, is to pass the legislation proposed by Senator Victoria Gu and Representative Terri Cortvriend.

“What that will mean is a professional agency that can do its work without the interference of a council that, frankly, doesn’t know what it’s doing,” he said, “or it is listening to people and voices that frankly, it shouldn’t be listening to.”

Topher Hamblett, executive director of Save the Bay, called for House and Senate leaders to act on those bills in the closing weeks of this year’s legislative session.

“This is about good government in the Ocean State,” Hamblett said. “The CRMC structure needs to go. It is a thick layer of politics that hangs over the professional staff of experts. The council causes delays in permitting and invites abuse. There’s no accountability.”

No one is publicly opposing the legislation that would replace CRMC with an executive branch agency, Hamblett said. But in the State House hallways, he said he hears concerns that the proposal is a “radical reform.”

“To that, I say, ‘The CMC structure itself is radical and it’s bad,’” he said. “Rhode Island is an outlier. The other New England states that have coasts — which is all but one — have coastal management agencies firmly planted in the executive branch.”

Hamblett said he also hears concerns about the cost of the proposal. But he said the costs would essentially be “a wash” because while the proposal calls for hiring a full-time attorney, the council now pays a private law practice. “Our coastal agency is way too important to not have a full-time staff attorney that’s fully dedicated and focused on the business of the agency,” he said.

Cortvriend, a Portsmouth Democrat, said she cannot understand why the Coastal Resources Management Council is not structured like the state Department of Environmental Management, as a regulatory state agency.

“I don’t understand this political process,” she said. “It’s inappropriate and and it’s outdated. And I think it’s really important that we move this bill forward.”

Gu, a Charlestown Democrat, said fishermen and those involved in aquaculture are often on opposite sides of issues but they agreed on the need to change the Coastal Resources Management Council structure.

“They both agree that the current system is not working,” she said. “So I think the question now is: Who is the system working for? I don’t think it’s working for Rhode Islanders, and we need this bill to make sure the CRMC can do its work to serve the people of Rhode Island.”

Edward Fitzpatrick can be reached at edward.fitzpatrick@globe.com. Follow him @FitzProv.