Beach Erosion at Second Beach, Middletown, Rhode Island
Most coastal town pages describe a beach as a fixed amenity. Second Beach -- also called Sachuest Beach, on Sachuest Point Road, fronting Sachuest Bay and Rhode Island Sound -- is not that right now. It is the site of an active, dated, town-official-documented erosion problem, one the Town of Middletown is still actively studying and managing as of this writing. This page walks through that story in order: the 2023-2024 winter sand loss at the beach's eastern end, the March 2025 engineering study the town commissioned in response, the January 2026 temporary cofferdam installation, and the honest state of play today, which is that no final, permanent remedy has been chosen. Third Beach, on the calmer Sakonnet River side of Middletown, was not part of this research and no equivalent erosion story for it is claimed here. This is risk-tracking content, not static description -- treat it as a snapshot of an unresolved situation, and follow the Town Council and Beach Commission's own public proceedings for anything more current than what is written here.
Second Beach: Where the Erosion Is Happening
Second Beach, also known as Sachuest Beach, sits on Sachuest Point Road in Middletown, fronting Sachuest Bay and, beyond it, Rhode Island Sound. That exposure to open water is the reason it takes the brunt of wave energy during winter storms, in contrast to Third Beach, which fronts the calmer Sakonnet River and did not turn up an equivalent erosion story in the research behind this page. Easton's Beach, sometimes associated with this stretch of coastline, is actually in neighboring Newport, not Middletown, and is a separate beach entirely.
The erosion in question is concentrated at Second Beach's eastern end, where repeated winter wave action has been steadily reworking the shoreline, the dune line, and the pathways that cross it. This page treats that eastern-end erosion as the specific, located problem it is, rather than a generic statement about "beach erosion" affecting Middletown as a whole.
The 2023-2024 Winter: Sand Loss and the Town Engineer's Own Words
The clearest starting point for this story is the winter of 2023-2024, which produced significant sand loss at Second Beach's eastern end. Middletown's own Town Engineer, John Mello, has described the recurring maintenance burden this creates in blunt terms: every spring, the town has to dig out all the paths because they get filled with sand. That is not a one-time cleanup after an unusual storm -- it is described as a recurring, seasonal task, which is itself evidence of how actively the shoreline at Second Beach is moving.
A March 2025 study commissioned by the town explicitly referenced heavy wave action during the 2023-2024 winter as a driver of that erosion, connecting the visible sand loss and path-burial problem Mello described to a more formal engineering analysis of what was happening offshore. That study is the subject of the next section.
March 11, 2025: The Coastal Systems Research Presentation
On March 11, 2025, Coastal Systems Research -- a New Jersey-based engineering firm -- presented erosion-modeling findings to the Town of Middletown at a public Town Hall meeting. The firm's modeling used NOAA data along with offshore buoy data specific to Sachuest Bay, giving the town an actual technical picture of how wave energy is interacting with the Second Beach shoreline, rather than relying on visual observation alone.
Will Cronin, Middletown's Facilities and Operations Manager, said at the time that the findings would help the town plan its protective next steps. That framing matters: as of March 2025, this was presented as an input to a decision the town had not yet made, not as the announcement of a chosen fix.
Four Options on the Table -- None of Them Chosen
Per that March 2025 presentation, the town was weighing four distinct paths forward: building an artificial reef, undertaking beach sand replenishment (nourishment), halting the ongoing removal of beach rocks, or taking no action at all. Those four options span a real range, from active engineering intervention to a deliberate choice to do nothing, and the research behind this page found no indication that the town, the Beach Commission, or the Town Council had narrowed that list or selected one of them.
The process laid out at the time was that the Beach Commission would use the Coastal Systems Research findings to develop a recommendation, which would then go to the Town Council -- the body that holds final decision-making authority over any erosion remedy at Second Beach. That is still, as of this writing, the operative process: a recommendation pending, and a final decision not yet made.
January 2026: Temporary Cofferdams Go In for the Winter
The week of January 6, 2026, the town moved from study to a concrete, if temporary, intervention: it installed sand-filled cofferdams at the mouths of pathways along Sachuest Point Road. These are geotextile-fabric bags roughly 4 feet by 4 feet and about 5 feet tall, positioned specifically to dissipate storm-surge wave energy before it reaches the dunes and paths behind them. Paths 1, 4, and 8, along with the path leading to the Second Beach Family Campground, were kept open year-round rather than blocked by the installation.
The town described this as a genuine field test: it planned to try straight-wall, V-shaped, and staggered cofferdam configurations against real winter conditions, with the explicit intention of removing the systems before the April-to-summer season begins. No cost figure for this installation was reported in the research behind this page, and none is estimated here.
What This Is Not: No Chosen Remedy, No Completion Date
It is worth being precise about what the January 2026 cofferdams are and are not. They are a temporary, seasonal, testing measure -- installed to protect dunes and pathways through one winter and to gather real-world performance data on three different configurations. They are not a permanent erosion-control structure, and their installation does not mean the town has chosen among the artificial reef, sand replenishment, rock-removal, or no-action options discussed back in March 2025.
No final remedy has been chosen as of this writing. No cost figure has been reported for whatever permanent solution eventually gets selected. No completion date for the town's decision-making process has been set or reported. Anyone reading this page for a settled answer on what will ultimately happen to Second Beach's eastern end will not find one here, because that answer does not yet exist publicly.
How to Follow This Story as It Develops
Because this is a live, unresolved planning process rather than a closed historical event, the right way to get current information is to follow it directly rather than rely on any static summary, including this one. The Beach Commission is the body developing the recommendation on which option -- or combination of options -- to pursue, and the Town Council holds final authority over whatever gets decided. Both bodies operate through Middletown's own public meeting process.
For anyone with a real stake in this -- a nearby property owner, a prospective buyer, a regular beachgoer -- the practical move is to watch the Town Council and Beach Commission's public meeting agendas and minutes directly, and to check with Middletown's Facilities and Operations department for the current status of the cofferdam testing and any recommendation that eventually goes to the Council.
Why This Story Matters Beyond Second Beach
Second Beach's erosion story is useful context well beyond the beach itself. Aquidneck Island, and Middletown's own share of it -- roughly 14.9 square miles total per Wikipedia (about 13.0 square miles of land and 2.0 square miles of water, with Britannica giving a slightly different 13 square miles overall) -- is a place where storm-surge wave energy is not an abstract risk. It is something the town is actively engineering against, in public, right now, at a named beach with a named town engineer describing the maintenance burden in his own words.
That is genuinely different from a generic coastal-erosion disclaimer. It is a live case study in how one Rhode Island shore town is responding to a real, recurring, winter-driven erosion problem -- honestly incomplete in its ending, because that ending has not been written yet, but concrete and current in everything that has happened so far.
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Get a Free Agent Referral →Independent research. No ads. No sponsored listings. This page describes erosion at Second Beach (Sachuest Beach), Sachuest Point Road, Middletown, RI, fronting Sachuest Bay and Rhode Island Sound. Confirmed, dated facts used here: significant 2023-2024 winter sand loss at Second Beach's eastern end; a quote from Middletown Town Engineer John Mello describing annual spring path-clearing due to sand fill; a March 2025 town-commissioned study referencing heavy 2023-2024 wave action; a March 11, 2025 public Town Hall presentation by Coastal Systems Research (a New Jersey-based firm) using NOAA data and offshore buoy modeling of Sachuest Bay; a statement from Facilities and Operations Manager Will Cronin that the findings would help the town plan protective steps; four options under consideration as of that presentation (artificial reef, beach sand replenishment, halting beach-rock removal, or no action); the Beach Commission's role in developing a recommendation for the Town Council, which holds final decision authority; and the installation, the week of January 6, 2026, of temporary sand-filled geotextile-fabric cofferdams (roughly 4 feet by 4 feet, about 5 feet tall) at pathway mouths along Sachuest Point Road, with Paths 1, 4, 8, and the Second Beach Family Campground path kept open year-round, three configurations (straight-wall, V-shaped, staggered) planned for testing, and removal planned before the April-to-summer season. Middletown's total area (about 14.9 square miles per Wikipedia, versus 13 square miles per Britannica) is noted only as general geographic context. What this page explicitly does not claim, because it was not found in the research behind it: any final chosen erosion remedy; any cost figure for the cofferdam installation or any future remedy; any specific completion date for the town's decision-making process; and any Third-Beach-specific erosion data. This is presented as an unresolved, ongoing situation. For current status, follow the Town of Middletown's Beach Commission and Town Council public meetings and the Facilities and Operations department directly.