The Scoop | so & so •
In Partnership with The Public’s Radio • ThePublicsRadio.org
Federal regulations required greater public access to Watch Hill Cove. With local prodding, Congress changed the law to the benefit of private interests The Watch Hill Yacht Club controls more than half of the moorings in Westerly’s exclusive Watch Hill Cove, a flashpoint for public access to Rhode Island’s coast. A new investigation found local, state, and federal officials worked to change US law to help keep it that way. By Alex Nunes If Watch Hill Cove is anything, it’s highly desirable. Boaters, kayakers, swimmers, fishermen, tourists, vacation homeowners, and year-round residents of Westerly all want to get to the sheltered inlet at the end of the Pawcatuck River,
The view of Watch Hill Cove from Napatree Point Conservation Area in Westerly. The Cove was once a federally authorized anchorage area, where U.S. law required access be open to all boaters on equal terms.
‘A HIGH CRIME’ Watch Hill Cove looks the way it does today because of work done by the federal government decades ago. A spokesperson for the Army Corps of Engineers said the US government dredged the cove as part of a federal navigation project in the area in 1948 and 1949. According to an Army Corps information guidebook, the total work cost the federal government what would amount to more than $2 million in today’s money. Because federal tax dollars paid for the dredging, Watch Hill Cove was designated a federal anchorage area, where access is required to be open to all boaters on equal terms. That means access should have been managed in “the general public interest” and
or requirement of any kind,” according to US Army Corps of Engineers standards. But what emerged over time was something different. The cove filled up with moorings and boaters claimed them as their own, effectively blocking other boaters from much of the area. Eventually the Watch Hill Yacht Club, founded in 1913, and its members came to own most of these moorings. “There was no authority, it seemed, that was in Watch Hill Cove. And people characterized it as literally a ‘pirate cove,’” said former Westerly Town Council member Jean Gagnier. “They were squatting. The squatters show up and they don’t have any authority, but they’re there.” Then in 2018, the Army Corps of Engineers decided to put pressure on the town of Westerly to address the lack of access to the area that federal law required. Army Corps of Engineers Col. William Conde sent the Westerly
made aware that moorings in the cove were being managed in a way that “limits access on the basis of yacht club membership.” “Membership in a specific yacht club should not be a prerequisite for obtaining a mooring in the Federal anchorage area,” Conde wrote. “The Town must ensure proper use and access to the Federal resource...” Town officials realized if action wasn’t taken, they ran the risk of the Army Corps removing the moorings in Watch Hill Cove entirely. At that time in 2018, the town was working to draft an official harbor management plan that spells out its current and proposed regulations around public shoreline access, water quality, storm preparedness, and mooring management. In Rhode Island, harbor management plans need to be approved by the state’s Coastal Resources Management Council. CRMC, though, would not approve Westerly’s
in a way that “made no arbitrary distinction
Town Council written notice, saying he’d been
plan if its moorings policies in Watch Hill Cove
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SORhodeIsland.com • December 2022
Photo by Alex Nunes
right by the open waters of Block Island Sound. It’s where the Watch Hill Yacht Club has its imposing three-story clubhouse atop an array of pillars and luxury pleasure vessels and sailboats dot a postcard-worthy view from Napatree Point across the water to Watch Hill’s central village. But this coveted spot now lacks federal regulations meant to protect public access, thanks to the work of government officials at the local, state, and federal levels that benefited private interests in Watch Hill. When town officials learned in recent years that federal law required public access to boat moorings in the cove, they did not use that as an opportunity to expand access to the water. Instead, an investigation by The Public’s Radio found officials lobbied Rhode Island’s congressional delegation to change federal law and keep the moorings in use by private hands.
