NORTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. (WPRI) — Where Quidnessett Country Club meets Narragansett Bay stands a roughly 600-foot sea wall, and it has put the country club in the crosshairs of the Rhode Island Attorney General's Office.

Jan Companies, which manages the country club, told 12 News the sea wall was built to protect the property from erosion.

"The last 30 years we've lost over 47 feet," said Janice Mathews, the vice president of Jan Companies. "And every time we lose more, we have to move the 14th fairway to the point where we can't move it anywhere else."

But the Attorney General's Office and Save the Bay have called on the country club to take down the wall, saying it was illegally built.

"You can't have individual property owners building walls that are poorly engineered, that aren't permitted," said Jed Thorp, the director of advocacy at Save the Bay. "Allowing them to keep the wall in place would set a terrible precedent for the rest of the state."

Mathews said the Jan Companies have spent millions trying to combat the erosion in ways that the Coastal Resource Management Council (CRMC) suggested, but none of them worked. So after a bad storm in December 2022, she said, they decided to build the wall.

But Thorp said the sea wall actually makes erosion worse for the club's neighbors.

"They have buried a section of coastal habitat under the rock wall," Thorp said. "They've also cut off public access along that stretch of shoreline, which is a violation of state law."

Now the country club is asking the CRMC to change its "water type" so the club can keep the wall.

"The ocean has changed so much over 40 years, and it's the same laws today that it was 40 years ago," Mathews said. "We need to keep up with this. We need to modernize everything."

But the Attorney General's Office pushed back. Spokesperson Brian Hodge wrote in a statement, "This is the classic case of knowingly violating the law and seeking forgiveness after the fact."

Last week the CRMC's staff recommended the club's petition be denied, noting the "potential negative impacts to the public shoreline."

This week the proposal went before the Planning and Procedures Subcommittee, where they decided they needed to hear more from the country club before making a decision.

The next meeting is scheduled for October 22 at 3 p.m.