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Sport-fishermen’s group wins beach-access court case

01:00 AM EST on Tuesday, February 15, 2011

By Katie Mulvaney

Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Members of a sport-fishermen’s club have won the right to drive on a barrier beach trail to reach their fishing and clamming grounds along Quonochontaug Pond.

Superior Court Judge Jeffrey A. Lanphear ruled that the Rhode Island Mobile Sportfishermen Club had proven the land it owns on the pond had been used for access by cars for fishing, clamming, swimming and hunting for more than 10 years. That historic use, the judge found, entitles the group to continue to cross over land owned by a nonprofit conservation organization to reach its property.

“It’s like a slice of heaven out there,” James Milardo, president of the club, said.

But the Nope’s Island Conservation Association, a nonprofit group dedicated to preserving the barrier beach, is considering an appeal, according to Richard Hosp, president of the Nope’s group.

“It’s a very sensitive area down there …,” Hosp said. “It has been our intention to preserve the land, not to fight.”

Quonochontaug Beach is a two-mile-long barrier beach extending along the coasts of Charlestown and Westerly. It is undeveloped except for a single home, and fronts on the Atlantic Ocean to the south and the pond to the north. The Nope’s Island group owns most of the peninsula, with the Rhode Island Mobile Sportfishermen owning about five acres toward the eastern end. The only way to get to the eastern tip is by a sand trail that runs the length of the beach. The easternmost mile of the trail is completely on land owned by Nope’s, court records show.

The fishermen bought the land in 1999 from John Crandall, whose family purchased it in 1929 and used it for quahogging, swimming, duck hunting, harvesting sea grass and trapping. In the 1980s, the Crandalls used it less than 10 times a year for shellfishing and hunting, the decision states. During the 1990s, they held an annual clambake there. The family openly drove along a sand trail now owned by the Nope’s group to reach the land for 70 years.

The group, whose 500 members advocate for managed public access to the shoreline for swimming and fishing, immediately began using the sand trail upon buying the lot. The Nope’s Island organization, with 375 members who live along the pond, promptly objected to the fishermen driving over the sand trail, but did not contest foot traffic on the path in bringing the case to court.

The Mobile Sportfishermen claimed to have an easement over the trail due to the continuous use of it for more than 10 years. In testimony, John Crandall told the court that he believed the family had a right to have access to the land, and that nobody ever told them otherwise.

Judge Lanphear ruled that the Nope’s organization produced no evidence that the fishermen were causing “significant environmental harm” by driving along the sand trail. The fishermen, to the contrary, showed that people had been gaining access to its land by car for more than 10 years via the sand trail, he found.

“Ferrying members by boat or walking two miles is not only a major inconvenience to RIMS, it is strikingly different from what the owners of the Crandall lot have done for almost a century,” Lanphear said. Without vehicular access and the ability to park along the sand trail, the judge said, the fishermen would be significantly impaired from using their land.

The number of cars will not be limited, but Lanphear ordered the fishermen to repair any damage to the easement within 30 days of a request by Nope’s.