Maine’s Surfrider Chapter Leads Charge to Overturn Byzantine Coastal Access Laws
Coastal right-of-way and zoning laws can be weird, to use the parlance of the week. And then there’s Maine weird.
Many coastal states have public beach-access laws, which provide that some variation of a high-tide or high-water line demarks where public land–or water, as the case may be–ends and private turf begins. What you choose or choose not to do there is your business, so long as it’s within the rules of the law.
The northernmost state on the Atlantic seaboard of these here United States, however, has had different ideas as of the 1980s, thanks to a pair of supremely bizarro case laws that entitled shorefront property owners in Maine to every last grain of sand, pebble of granite, and blade of grass down to the mean low-tide line fronting their precious digs, provided they make concessions for “fishing, fowling, and navigation,” but only fishing, fowling, and navigation, according to Bell vs. Town of Wells I & II (1986 and 1989, respectively).
As such, should you traipse between the sea and private property at any point in the tide without a weapon, angling implement, or navigational instrument, you are trespassing and subject to whatever that entails.
Carrying binoculars for birdwatching, empty-handedly perusing about tidepools, or–heaven forbid–toting a surfboard? Forget about it. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, et cetera, et cetera. You know the drill. We surf-going folk are all lowlifes, after all, one and all.
To anyone familiar with the region, it should come as no surprise that these rulings stem from byzantine, colonial-era ordinances in New England that were designed to reserve commoners' rights to provide for themselves. And fair enough–but times have changed and by no shortage of good grace we are an increasingly recreational society now, what with our surfing and bird-watching paraphernalia, and damn it, it’s time for a change.
This is where we lend three cheers for Surfrider–its Maine chapter, to be precise. Last week, Staley Prom, the foundation’s Senior Legal Associate, reported that Surfrider has filed an amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) brief with the Maine Supreme Court in response to (and support of) an appeal titled Peter Masucci v. Judy’s Moody, LLC et al., taking shorefront property owners to court for restricting access to Moody Beach in Wells.
Surfrider’s brief argues that the Bell cases “contravene background principles of Maine property law, including the public trust doctrine.” It also points out that, as we stated above, “the vast majority of U.S. coastal states’ Supreme Courts recognize state ownership of intertidal lands, as well as public recreational uses on that property.”
The author of the brief, Adam Steinman, also made sure not to shy away from mentioning Surfrider’s countless stewardship activities, which include beach cleanups and water-quality monitoring programs–things that, we might add, go to benefit not just the state and its public, but the very shorefront property owners who–let’s be honest–might not be so inclined to lift let alone carry stray trash from their private beaches.
Briefing is still underway, and according to Surfrider, “the Court is anticipated to hear oral arguments from the parties before rendering a decision.” You can bet every last lobster roll in the Pine Tree State that we’ll be watching this one closely, but stay tuned with Surfrider’s Maine chapter and Maine’s Supreme Court website for more.
Support Surfrider’s Maine Chapter and contribute to their legal fees here.
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