Posted on January 12, 2026
NARRAGANSETT, R.I. — It’s been months since the Narrow River dredging project has even appeared on the Narragansett Town Council agenda, but it did so on Monday as officials gave a substantial update.
According to Town Manager James Tierney, even if the permitting process is complete mid-year, the absolute earliest the project would be able to start would be on Oct. 15. This is due to environmental habitat regulations. In fact, if they don’t make the narrow window from Oct. 15 to Jan. 31, they’ll have to wait until the next year.
Tierney said that the typical length of time to get a dredging permit is about six to eight months, but that’s with perfect timing. The length will largely depend on the Army Corps of Engineers, which is the board that will take the longest to approve the project.
On June 4, the Army Corps permit application and the Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC) were both submitted. On June 18, the Rhode Island DEM application was submitted. On July 1, the notice for public comments on the project was published. On Aug. 5, the town sent CRMC’s application comments to the town’s engineering firm.
In mid-September, CRMC sent a letter to the town with formal comments and a request for two specific items: water level monitoring and planting plans for coastal areas. Tierney said both of these requests take a while to plan.
In late November, CRMC responded to the town’s planting plan for the project. In mid-December, they responded to the water level monitoring plan.
As of Monday, the town submitted both plans to the engineering department. The department had the response prepared but wanted to wait for Tierney to return from vacation so he could review it and sign off on it before resubmitting it to CRMC.
Tierney said that along with this tedious permit process, the government shutdown likely slowed things down as well. In his experience, the Army Corps are usually quick to respond, but directly following the shutdown period, they said they were managing a large backlog of work. The Corps also said that they will be updating the assignment to another project manager within the wildlife service to manage the workload.
