Seawall & Bulkhead Guide: Middletown, RI

Two Shorelines on One Island: Second Beach vs. Third Beach

Middletown sits between Newport to the south and Portsmouth to the north on Aquidneck Island, and like Newport, it does not have a single uniform shoreline. Second Beach faces Sachuest Bay and, beyond it, Rhode Island Sound directly -- open-ocean exposure, with the wave energy and storm-surge pressure that comes with it. Third Beach, on the opposite side of Sachuest Point, faces the Sakonnet River instead, a narrower tidal waterway that is generally calmer and more sheltered than the open-ocean-facing side. A seawall, bulkhead, or revetment question looks different depending on which of those two edges a property sits near.

This research did not find documentation of specific private seawalls or bulkheads along either beach's residential frontage in Middletown -- no inventory, no addresses, no construction dates. What it did find is a real, current, town-led shoreline-protection effort at Second Beach, described below, plus an ongoing and unresolved town process for deciding what a longer-term fix should even look like.

The Town's Own Approach Right Now: Temporary Sand-Filled Cofferdams at Second Beach

Rather than building a permanent seawall, Middletown's current shoreline-protection method at Second Beach is temporary: sand-filled cofferdams. During the week of January 6, 2026, the town installed these systems at the mouths of pathways along Sachuest Point Road -- geotextile-fabric bags roughly 4 feet by 4 feet and about 5 feet tall, filled with sand, positioned to dissipate storm-surge wave energy and protect the dunes and pathways behind them over the winter. Paths 1, 4, 8, and the path to the Second Beach Family Campground were kept open year-round rather than blocked by the installations.

The town treated this as a genuine engineering test rather than a finished solution: it planned to try straight-wall, V-shaped, and staggered configurations of the cofferdams, comparing how each held up against storm surge, and it intended to remove the systems entirely before the April and summer season. That is a meaningfully different posture than installing a permanent hard structure -- it is soft, removable, and explicitly experimental, which is worth understanding before assuming Middletown has, or is moving toward, a permanent seawall at Second Beach.

What a Seawall or Bulkhead Actually Is, and Why the Town Chose Something Else

A seawall is typically a vertical or near-vertical wall -- concrete, steel, or masonry -- built to block wave energy directly at the shoreline. A bulkhead is usually a lighter structure, often timber, vinyl, or steel sheet piling, built mainly to retain soil and hold a property line rather than absorb heavy surf. A revetment is a sloped facing of armor stone or riprap laid against an eroding bank, meant to dissipate wave energy across an angled surface instead of reflecting it off a vertical face. Sand-filled cofferdams, like the ones Middletown installed at Second Beach, are a different category still: temporary, removable barriers meant to blunt storm-surge energy for a single season, not a permanent hard-armoring solution in any of those three senses.

That distinction matters for anyone evaluating Second Beach or Third Beach as a place to build a permanent seawall or bulkhead. The town's choice to test temporary cofferdams rather than commit to permanent armoring is itself informative: it suggests a public shoreline-management approach still in an experimental, data-gathering phase rather than a settled engineering answer, at least for the stretch the town itself manages.

The Unresolved Long-Term Decision: A Reef, Sand, Rocks, or Nothing -- Not a Seawall

Middletown's longer-term plan for Second Beach's erosion problem is genuinely still undecided, and it is worth being precise about what has and has not been proposed. On March 11, 2025, Coastal Systems Research -- a New Jersey firm working with NOAA data and offshore buoy modeling of Sachuest Bay -- presented erosion-modeling findings to the town. The options reported as under consideration for a longer-term approach were an artificial reef, beach sand replenishment, halting the removal of beach rocks, or taking no action at all. A permanent seawall or bulkhead was not specifically named among those options in the research behind this page.

The process from there runs through Middletown's Beach Commission, which was expected to recommend a course of action to the Town Council, and the seven-member Town Council -- under the town's council-manager form of government, with an appointed Town Administrator -- retains final decision authority. As of the research behind this page, no final remedy had been chosen. Anyone evaluating a property near Second Beach on the assumption that the town has settled on, or is building, a permanent seawall should treat that as unconfirmed, because it is.

If You're Considering a Private Seawall or Bulkhead: Town Permitting Plus RI CRMC

None of the research above addresses private, individual shoreline structures on residential parcels near Second Beach or Third Beach -- this page does not have data on existing private seawalls or bulkheads in Middletown, and it does not invent any. What can be said generally is that any private seawall, bulkhead, or revetment construction in Middletown would need to clear two separate layers of approval: Middletown's own town permitting process, and Rhode Island's Coastal Resources Management Council, commonly known as CRMC, the state's coastal regulatory body for construction within the regulated coastal zone.

This page does not state a specific CRMC permit fee, application timeline, or setback distance for any Middletown parcel -- none of those figures were confirmed in the research behind this page, and a number invented here would not be reliable enough to plan around. Contact CRMC directly for current permitting requirements, and contact Middletown's own building or planning department for whatever local review applies on top of CRMC's, both before assuming any cost, timeline, or approval outcome.

What This Page Can't Tell You

Several real gaps are disclosed here rather than filled in with an invented number. This page does not identify any specific existing private seawall or bulkhead in Middletown, does not state a CRMC fee or timeline, does not know what the Beach Commission or Town Council will ultimately decide for Second Beach's longer-term erosion plan, and does not know how long the current cofferdam test will run beyond the town's stated intent to remove the systems before the April and summer season. It also does not have data on any equivalent town-led shoreline-protection effort at Third Beach; the cofferdam program described above is specific to Second Beach in the research behind this page.

Practical Takeaways for a Middletown Waterfront Buyer or Owner

If you are evaluating a property near Second Beach, understand that the town itself is still experimenting with temporary, removable shoreline protection rather than relying on permanent armoring, and that its own longer-term plan -- an artificial reef, sand replenishment, halting rock removal, or no action -- remains undecided and did not specifically include a seawall among the options reported. If you are evaluating a property near Third Beach instead, expect the calmer Sakonnet River exposure, but do not assume that means no permitting applies to a shoreline structure you might want to build there.

Either way, confirm current rules, fees, and timelines directly with Rhode Island's CRMC and with Middletown's own building or planning department, and consult a Rhode Island-licensed coastal engineer before planning any seawall, bulkhead, or revetment. Nothing on this page is engineering, permitting, or legal advice, and it is not a substitute for that direct professional consultation.