Another marina seeks to expand

Warwick Beacon Online

Written by BARNES, JENNETTE

Tue, Jun 18 02

"By JENNETTE BARNES

As Defenders of Greenwich Bay continues to fight the expansion of Greenwich Bay Marina, a neighboring marina is also applying for state permits to add boat slips.

On June 11, the Defenders of Greenwich Bay filed an appeal in Superior Court challenging the decision of the Coastal Resources Management Council to allow the Greenwich Bay Marina to stretch its perimeter to 3.9 acres, making it the largest in Rhode Island. The new perimeter would have accommodated about 161 new slips for a total near 473. The same day they filed their appeal, the Army Corps of Engineers issued public notice that Apponaug Harbor Marina, north of Greenwich Bay Marina, has also applied to expand.

Jack Early, spokesperson for Defenders of Greenwich Bay, said the group has not taken a position on the addition of 97 slips at Apponaug, which would bring it to a total of 312 slips. The project involves installation of two main floats and 101 finger floats to create slips 25 feet and 30 feet long.

Owner John Dickerson said Friday that he originally planned to make all the slips 30 feet long, but CRMC suggested that 30-foot boats might churn up the floor of the cove in shallower areas. The water can be as shallow as two feet at low tide. He then changed the slips closest to shore to 25 feet. The main floats will run east to west, parallel to his existing floats on the north end of the marina. To the south, between Apponaug Harbor Marina and Greenwich Bay Marina is Mary’s Creek and the tidal flat at the creek’s mouth. CRMC would not allow Greenwich Bay Marina to expand toward the flat because it is a spawning ground for shellfish.

Dickerson isn’t taking names yet for the new slips, but he said demand is high. He used to keep a waiting list for slips, but by the time he sent contracts to people on the list many had found slips elsewhere. These days, he gets two or three calls a day from new people looking for space, he said.

All the new slips will be single slips, which have floats on both sides on the boat instead of just one side. Many of Dickerson’s customers prefer them, he said, and some who have double slips have expressed a desire to move to single slips.

Although the Army Corps issued its customary list of fish species that could be adversely affected by dredging and by the shade that new floats would cast onto the water, potentially reducing the production of food for marine life, the district engineer has said the adverse effects would not be "substantial." The shading is not likely to lead the Army Corps to deny a permit. The project will affect about 12,933 square feet of Apponaug Cove.

According to Dickerson, the land that is now Apponaug Cove Marina was once the home of the Arnold’s Neck Boat Club, which was destroyed in the hurricane of 1938. A fixed pier had been in place since the 1800s, he said.

Dickerson said a spokesperson for the Arnold’s Neck Improvement Association and Cedar Tree Point Association had told him they were not opposed to the expansion. The groups were the thrust behind the formation of Defenders of Greenwich Bay when they pooled their resources to hire legal counsel to fight the expansion of Greenwich Bay Marina.

The Defenders and the city administration have supported a call by Save the Bay for a Special Area Management Plan. In March, state legislators announced the appropriation of $250,000 in federal funds to create a SAM Plan through the Coastal Resources Management Council.

Defenders spokesperson Jack Early said the emergence of the Apponaug Harbor Marina expansion plan is "a further indication of why we need the results of a SAM Plan." The plan would, in part, outline how many boat slips Greenwich Bay can sustain without harm to the environment."