Town seeks answers to beach erosion

LIFE'S A BEACH: Tara Mulroy, owner of Tara's Tipperary Tavern, surveys her business' damaged beach deck. Her lawyer says she is seeking options to protect the business. / PBN PHOTO/BRIAN MCDONALD
LIFE'S A BEACH: Tara Mulroy, owner of Tara's Tipperary Tavern, surveys her business' damaged beach deck. Her lawyer says she is seeking options to protect the business. / PBN PHOTO/BRIAN MCDONALD

(Updated May 30, 2012)

With beach erosion threatening to cut a piece of South Kingstown from the mainland, the Coastal Resources Management Council has approved a $700,000 plan to allow the town to build a retaining wall along Matunuck Beach Road. But the plan is merely a stopgap to allow the town and residents to find a long-term solution to a problem threatening to wash away businesses and homes in coastal communities across the state.

“The overall plan is for CRMC to establish what they find as an experimental beachfront,” said South Kingstown Town Manager Stephen A. Alfred. “They should establish rules for the property owners, who would then be able to try innovative technology for abating or minimizing future erosion.” They include potentially costly options such as importing sand to build up the beach and a series of smaller retaining walls to help keep the sand from washing away.
“The question is, ‘Is the characteristic of our beach, the slope of the beach itself, conducive to any of those technologies?’ ” Alfred said.
Some winters and springs are relatively mild when it comes to offshore storms moving inland. In those years the beachfront remains calm and unchanged. However, there are times when Mother Nature releases a Nor’easter that rips the coast apart, bringing waves that take tons of sand from the beach. Some sand might later return to the coast by natural causes, but there is always a net loss, a situation that gets worse each passing year.
An aggressive plan to stem erosion was first laid out last year when South Kingstown submitted an application to CRMC in September, proposing construction of a steel and concrete wall with riprap stone armaments along a 200-foot span of Matunuck Beach Road. The council denied the “special exception” proposal by a 7-2 vote on April 10. On April 24, the council entertained another proposal by the town, asking CRMC to reclassify 1,400 feet of the shoreline from “coastal headlands, bluffs and cliffs” to “manmade shoreline,” in order to allow construction of a retaining sea wall. That motion was voted down by a 6-2 margin due to fears of setting a precedent, but CRMC didn’t slam the door shut. The council voted to keep the matter open for discussion before recently reversing course and approving the town’s initial request to build a 200-foot sheet metal and concrete wall. The wall will be paid for with a state grant.
But for property owners along the shoreline, the stakes are still high to find a long-term solution.
William R. Landry, of Blish & Cavanagh LLP in Providence, represents the Ocean Mist and Tara’s Tipperary Tavern, both located on Matunuck Beach Road.
“They feel there are three distinct interests that need to be protected,” said Landry. “One interest is protecting the beach from erosion. The second is protection of the town’s right of way and their infrastructure. The third is the protection of the houses and businesses that have existed there long before CRMC regulations came into effect.”
Tara Mulroy, co-owner of Tara’s Tipperary Tavern, has been on the frontline of nature’s assault on the property. “It’s been really, really hard. We put out sandbags and we watch them wash away; and I’m talking about thousands of sandbags to see if we can save our property.”
In 2008, two houses on the parcel were almost lost to the ocean. New pilings were installed further from the shore and the houses moved back. The sand, however, still undercuts the buildings.
She looks forward to the temporary retaining wall. “You work very hard but don’t get very far,” she lamented. “We need the wall. It’s a start.”
Landry believes CRMC needs to adopt a flexible position on its prohibition on structural shoreline protection, and also suggests that the first line of defense should be a sophisticated beach-replenishment program. “There are advanced methods of growing beaches that counter-effect erosion that don’t involve hard, structural measures,” he said.
“[A beach-replenishment program is] something that the staff has advocated for and encouraged in its reports and at the meetings,” said Laura Dwyer, information coordinator for CRMC.
“From what I have seen attending the meetings, many people believe a long-term plan is needed to address erosion control,” she said. “The town is saying that a long-term solution is needed but they are still in immediate peril of losing the road. The fact that the council reconsidered the application says a lot.”
Several environmental organizations initially op-posed the construction of a solid sea wall and the subsequent reclassification of the coastline, fearing the construction of a hard barrier and the precedent it might set for other communities.
One of the groups, Save The Bay, now feels more comfortable with CRMC’s decision. “It was made very clear to everyone by CRMC Executive Director Grover Fugate that the approval was just a stopgap measure to prevent the immediate washing out of the road,” said Jane Kenney Austin, special coalitions liaison to Save The Bay.
A half-mile to the west, the Roy Carpenter’s Beach Association – a collection of 350-plus cottages – is under a similar assault, but with no town roads or utilities under threat, owner Nancy Thoresen finds herself on her own. Beach erosion is nothing new to the association, as members have seen the sand slowly wash into the ocean for decades. But it seems to have accelerated.
Carrigan Engineering Inc. of Narragansett is developing a site plan for a new road and infrastructure on the property, as well as an area designated for the first two rows of cottages on the east side to move out of harm’s way.
“That cost is obviously on us,” Thoresen said, “but the cost of moving each individual cottage would be up to the owner.” 

Please note that in our May 28, 2012 edition, we listed Mary Carpenter Thoresen as the president and owner of  Roy Carpenter’s Beach.  Nancy Thoresen owns Roy Carpenter’s Beach, while Mary Carpenter Thoresen is the owner of Carpenter’s Beach Meadow Inc.

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