It is our responsibility to protect and preserve the natural beauty of our island home.
About Us
WATERCOLOR BY: TORY COREY
Protect Conanicut Coastline (PCC) started out as the “Friends of Dumplings Cove” in response to proposals in 2019 and 2020 to dredge portions of the cove and expand the Jamestown Boatyard (JBY) docks. While this citizens’ effort remains a core of the organization’s activities, it has resulted in a recognition that the entire Conanicut Island coastline is at risk of overdevelopment, climate change, pollution, commercialization, and diminishing accessibility to Narragansett Bay. Therefore, this group of concerned citizens created a new organization in 2021 with an Island-wide scope and 501(c)(3) tax deductible status.
Our History
In response to a planned expansion of the Safe Harbor/Jamestown Boatyard in the Cove in 2020, a number of Jamestown residents founded Friends of Dumplings Cove to oppose the proposal before CRMC. SH/JBY’s plan called for dredging of over 20,000 square feet of the Cove sea bottom and extension of three piers to accommodate more and larger boats from elsewhere around the Bay.
We first identified the threats to public safety in this plan from overcrowding of a scenic and vitally recreational Narragansett Bay gem, as well as the environmental dangers of dredging a dynamic, healthy ecosystem. That summer, we organized a petition campaign that was signed by over 630 Jamestown residents against the proposal.
At the CRMC Zoom meeting that fall, we organized 26 expert witnesses to testify against the proposal, but we unfortunately lost by one vote (4-2) of the Council members. From their deliberations, it was clear that the four approving members had never visited the site and knew or cared nothing about the environmental or safety issues that we raised in our testimony, not to mention the public outcry by Jamestown residents over the plan. But with only 6 members voting in October, CRMC had to push through another vote in private on December 31. That allowed the dredging equipment to begin four days later, totally ignoring the 30-day mandatory window for any appeals of the decision, which was already planned by The Dumplings Association.
In April 2021, at our group’s urging, Rhode Island Attorney General and Jamestown resident Peter Neronha, wrote a scathing public letter to CRMC calling them out for errors in judgement, failure to observe their own rulebook and other issues, and strongly recommended to CRMC to reconsider their decision. That letter was totally ignored by the Council, however, and the dredging damage had already been done.
January 7-12, 2021; Dredging of Dumplings Cove
Photo Series Credit: Denis Dowling & Allie Ababwa
To Protect Conanicut Coastline
Over the next year, we recognized that all of Conanicut Island was now threatened by the type of overdevelopment that we saw in the Dumplings Cove debacle. So we changed our name to Protect Conanicut Coastline to better communicate that we had become a watchdog advocate for all of our beloved island. To aid in our efforts, we acquired non-profit status as an essential tool in gaining the support across the island that would be necessary to take on these much larger and better-funded adversaries.
Meanwhile, the acquisition of three of the four marinas on the island by multi-billion-dollar corporations raised more concerns among our group. We already lived through the purchase of Jamestown Boatyard by Safe Harbor and then by Sun Communities, a $3 billion operator of trailer parks and “manufactured housing,” based in Michigan. Then came the more recent acquisition of both Dutch Island Marina and Conanicut Marina by the real estate conglomerate, The Proccacianti Group, based in Cranston, RI. It became clear that operating local marinas for the local boating community was not the long-term objective of these developers. In reality, acquiring and owning commercially zoned waterfront property would enable them to ultimately build condos and other high-margin commercial ventures.
In the meantime, CRMC continued to make one blunder after another, including their disastrous backdoor deal to allow expansion of Champlin’s Marina that the RI Supreme Court threw out after AG Neronha intervened on behalf of the unified residents of Block Island in 2022. More recently, the Council, against the recommendations of their own staff, voted to allow an undersea cable to be sited from the proposed offshore wind farm direct to Quonset without involving the state legislature, as again mandated by law. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back and the state legislature sprang into action.
By then it was clear that the 10-member Council of CRMC had become a major enabler of the business entities that most threaten our fragile coastline, so we began by speaking with our local representatives to suggest changes in that organization to better represent the interests of local residents. Our plan called for removal of the 10-member council and restructuring CRMC to be a more mainstream state agency along the lines of the Department of Environmental Management. In partnership with Save the Bay and Attorney General Neronha, our efforts in 2023 led to supporting members of the RI State Legislature in their fight to totally reform CRMC to make it fully accountable and transparent to all citizens of the Ocean State.
In April of 2023 several of us testified before the House and Senate committees in favor of the proposed CRMC restructuring legislation. We followed up with two emails to those Jamestown residents who signed the petition in 2020 with the request that they contact our local state senator and representative to move the bill out of the committees, onto the floor of both houses for passage and on to the Governor for his signature. However, no meaningful bills made it to the floor for a vote in the 2023 legislative session. So that remains our goal today as now we realize that, no matter how long it takes, we will be vigilant and determined in our efforts to reform CRMC.
Our Board
Stuart Ross
Chair, Protect Conanicut Coastline
A lifelong Jamestowner, Stuart Ross was one of the founders of Friends of Dumplings Cove to oppose the expansion of the Jamestown Boat Yard in 2020. Since then, the organization has expanded to focus on the entire coastline of Conanicut Island, to encourage only sustainable or responsible development from many sources, but primarily large, commercially driven marinas across the island.
Stuart has a deep background in environmental science and policy, starting with a master’s degree from the Yale School of the Environment. For the last 15 years, he was Communications Director for Clean Air Task Force, one of the largest and most effective non-profit organizations focused on technological, legislative and regulatory solutions to global climate change. After retiring in 2022, he is now putting those long-time communication and advocacy skills to good use in his home waters of Narragansett Bay.
Peter Converse
Peter Converse has been been recreating on Narragansett Bay since visiting his grandparents in the 1960’s. He has also worked on the water, and at waterfront locations along Conanicut Island. In high school his summer jobs included maintenance work on the Newport Bridge. Summer jobs included dock master positions at Newport marinas, and a winter working in the shipbuilding industry. Later on he owned a contracting company. His company served a number of clients along the Conanicut shoreline.
These experiences exposed Peter to many experiences in dealing with coastal policy and its laws. He was witness to how some enterprises took advantage of relaxed enforcement of laws and procedure. Peter was also fortunate to grow up when Save The Bay became a vital force in repairing ecosystem systems throughout the bay.
On the conservation front, Peter’s most recent endeavor, prior to PCC, was his civil engagement as secretary of the Jamestown Committee on LNG Threat. The committee, a Town of Jamestown special group, was instrumental in quashing the efforts of a major petroleum corporation’s efforts to import Liquified Natural Gas, by way of Supertankers, into Narragansett Bay. He also supports a number of other not-for-profit enterprises focused on keeping ocean resources free from the consequences of industrialization, and human disregard.
Anne Garnett
Annie Garnett is a year-round resident of Jamestown, RI. With over 8 years of marine field research and sea time, she earned the professional Masters Marine Affairs (MMA) degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1984. As Deputy Director of the Ocean Research & Education Society in the 1970s and early 1980s, she crewed on board its r/v Regina Maris in the global effort to identify and assess populations of humpback whales. Nationally, Garnett worked for NRDC’s endangered species program as well as for the Marine Mammal Commission. She served on the Land Trust Alliance’s Policy team for 15 years. Locally, she was Save The Bay’s first Director of Development and has been Managing Director of the Roger Williams Park Zoo, Executive Director of the Aquidneck Land Trust; and Senior Advisor Development, the Preservation Society of Newport County. Annie is a member of the Board of Advisors, Aquidneck Land Trust; former Advisor, Conservation Law Foundation; and former Advisor, The Metcalf Institute for Marine and Environmental Reporting. After a 45-year career in marine research, wildlife and land conservation, and philanthropy, Garnett retired in 2021.
Bill Salmons
Swimming, snorkeling, sailing and fishing, Bill grew up in Narragansett Bay. When his grandmother wanted to make RI clam chowder, he rowed out to buy quahogs from the quahoggers digging up clams from their skiffs in Dutch Harbor.
Bill spent much of his financial career in major cities here and abroad, but returned to Providence to raise his family. The draw of Rhode Island’s coastline eventually brought him back to Conanicut Island, where his partner and he are now building an energy-efficient house overlooking Narragansett Bay’s West Passage.
The Bay is the core of Rhode Island. Over human history its 400 miles of coastline attracted indigenous people, European explorers and settlers, vacationers, and those that make their livelihood from the sea. Bill joined PCC in order to keep this heritage and opportunity foremost in our minds and our policies as we Rhode Islanders determine how best to use, enjoy and preserve the ocean in our state.
Bradford Whitman
Brad Whitman and his wife Elaine have lived part-time in Rhode Island all their lives. His family textile company had its flagship mill here.
Brad is an “active retiree” from a career in environmental law and litigation that began at the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington. He represented the newly-created U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in courts around the country. At that time Rhode Island Senator John Chafee was devoted to Narragansett Bay, and he led the Senate in enacting and overseeing the implementation of environmental laws that became models in Europe. Brad acquired a good deal of scientific knowledge through his cases and in the defense of complex EPA regulations. He went into private practice at two prominent law firms, handled a broad spectrum of environmental cases, and was a federal arbitrator in complex environmental lawsuits. He is a hands-on conservationist and has been involved with many environmental groups.
Chad George
It became clear that government was not enforcing zoning laws to protect our historic residential neighborhood from commercial intrusion. Parking requirements, public road access, and the crowding out of neighborhood use in Dumplings Cove were ignored. PCC was needed to counterbalance that institutional bias to mount grassroots opposition, and raise tax-deductible funds to contest unwise encroachment on Conanicut’s coast.
Chad has been in business for over 40 years. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Chicago, his prior roles included VP and Treasurer of US Air, CFO of Huffy Corporation, and CEO of multiple companies. Experience includes overseeing complex litigation. For the last 18 years, Chad has been the CEO and owner of WHR Holdings, LLC, a manufacturer of metal building products.