PROVIDENCE – A change in the leadership of the R.I. Coastal Resources Management Council has not diminished the state agency’s focus on education, analysis and mitigation to protect against rising sea levels.
Jeffrey Willis, who became executive director in September, said in an interview with PBN that he will continue to carry out the mission and attention his predecessor, Grover Fugate, placed on coastal resilience while also expanding efforts on other priority issues such as offshore wind projects, public access and permitting.
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Fugate retired in May after more than three decades at the helm of the state agency. In an interview with PBN earlier this week, he said he wanted to spend time with family, though he has continued to offer his expertise to other states looking to bolster climate resilience plans and analysis. He has not kept up with how the agency has acted since he left, he said, but was confident the issues he brought to the forefront were still being prioritized.
During his tenure with CRMC, Fugate played a key role in making rising sea levels, and their impact on coastal communities, a focus. Among his accomplishments as executive director are the creation of eight Special Area Management Plans for specific geographic areas across the state, each with its own set of guidelines aimed at habitat and wildlife protection, stormwater management, public access issues and coastal resilience. Fugate was also instrumental in securing state funding and helping to develop “STORMTOOLS,” an online, interactive set of maps and models that identify current and future flood risk across the state.
These tools and policies are still being used by state and municipal leaders to address rising sea levels. The city of Warwick, which Fugate named as one most at risk for flooding in an interview with PBN in 2018, relies on STORMTOOLS and its prior work with Fugate to inform building codes, planning requirements and new coastal resiliency projects, according to Daniel Geagan, principal planner for the city.
Geagan named as example a project to improve coastal resilience, stormwater pollution and recreation in the Oakland Beach neighborhood, which received grant funding through CRMC and the R.I. Department of Environmental Management in 2020.
Geagan was not worried that Fugate’s departure would diminish the attention given to coastal resiliency.
Willis, who has been at the agency for 32 years and previously served as its deputy director, also stressed the importance of these tools as the agency continues its work to bolster coastal resiliency against flooding.
The guidelines and protections laid out in the Ocean SAMP will prove particularly important for proposed offshore wind projects, which, in addition to federal permitting, must also receive a “consistency of determination” from CRMC if their projects fall in federal waters within the SAMP.
This includes the South Fork Wind Farm, on which CRMC will be issuing its decision by May 12. The 15-turbine, 130-megawatt array is one of two slated for federal waters off the coast of Block Island. The other, the Revolution Wind project, is still several years away from CRMC review. Both are planned by Danish wind developer Orsted A/S, which owns the Block Island Wind Farm, in conjunction with Boston-based Eversource Energy.
Willis also named expanded shoreline access as a focus of his leadership, as well as a new general permitting process that would eliminate the requisite agency approval from small, non-coastal projects not expected to have a significant coastal or environmental impact, such as building a shed in a homeowner’s backyard.
While Willis insisted the agency’s focus and attention has not changed, recent controversy over expansion of a Block Island marina has some calling the agency, and him, into question.
Henry DuPont, founding director for the Committee for the Great Salt Pond, readily admitted he had little proof that Willis’ leadership of the agency would change its focus. But the fact that Willis participated in the “back room deal” that resulted in the controversial approval to allow expansion of Champlin’s Hotel, Marina and Dockage did not sit well with DuPont.
“If he thought this backroom deal was a good idea, that’s a questionable practice,” DuPont said.
The requested dockage expansion into Great Salt Pond was previously denied by the CRMC under Fugate’s time as executive director, though the decision was made by the council, which acts as a separate body. Still, Fugate told The Providence Journal that he would not have entered into mediation talks with the marina based on the information he had when he was still with the CRMC.
Willis declined to comment on his decision to enter into mediation because the decision remains under review by the R.I. Supreme Court. R.I. Attorney General Peter F. Neronha on Thursday issued a memo urging the court to deny the agreement, saying the CRMC’s participation in the mediation was “inappropriate.”
Jonathan Stone, executive director for Save the Bay, which was one of several environmental groups that criticized the CRMC’s mediation agreement, did not fault Willis for the decision. Instead, he blamed “structural problems” with how the state agency operates, including that its legal counsel is a part-time attorney who also does lobbying work through his private firm. Save The Bay has long pushed to overhaul certain tenants of the way the state agency works, including creating a full-time, in-house counsel for the group and having controversial cases heard by attorneys trained in coastal regulations rather than a council of state-appointed citizens, some of whom lack this expertise.
Asked for a response to these concerns, Willis said the organization’s structure “works well” but added that the agency will adapt if the state legislature changes its structure.
Amid controversy over the Champlin’s approval, the R.I. Senate has held up confirmations of several board members up for reappointment. Stone hoped tensions over the case, combined with a new legislature and governor, would lead to the kind of systemic reforms in how the organization operates long-term.
Nancy Lavin is a PBN staff writer. You may reach her at Lavin@PBN.com.
