Block Island: RI High Court Rejects Backdoor CRMC-Marina Deal

NEW SHOREHAM — The Rhode Island Supreme Court on Friday refused to give its blessing to a quiet agreement crafted between a state agency and developers that would have allowed a controversial marina expansion to move forward.

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The Dec. 29 Memorandum of Understanding reached between the Coastal Resources Management Council and Champlin's Realty Associates was the result of private mediation. The discussions failed to involve project opponents, the Supreme Court noted in its three-page order.

What's more, the CRMC and Champlin's raised new issues of fact in asking the high court for a consent order. "It is not the function of this Court to 'rehear' a case or consider new evidence not presented in the Superior Court," the March 26 order reads.

Long-standing intervenors in the conflict are the Town of New Shoreham, the Committee for the Great Salt Pond, the Block Island Land Trust, the Block Island Conservancy, and the Conservation Law Foundation. Recently, the court granted a motion to intervene by Attorney General Peter Neronha.

As reported by The Providence Journal back in February, intervenors slammed what they called a "backroom deal" between regulators and developers in a mediation process led by a retired Supreme Court justice. After the investigative news report was published, Neronha urged the Supreme Court to reject the negotiated MOU, citing concerns about transparency and inclusion.

“My office intervened because the process utilized here by the CRMC and Champlin’s was non-transparent, excluded these important additional stakeholders, and resulted in an agreement that failed to contain the environmental findings necessary to protect one of Rhode Island’s great natural resources — Block Island’s Great Salt Pond,” Neronha said in a statement on Friday.

The complicated legal battle over the proposed expansion of Champlin's Marina into Great Salt Pond goes back to at least 2003. Now Champlin's appeal of a Superior Court decision will presumably be heard in open court before Supreme Court justices.