ecoRI News — Shoreline Access Study Commission Agrees on Public’s Right to Pass

Concerns about vanishing access to the coast have shoreline access advocates seeking expanded public rights. (Joanna Detz/ecoRI News)

March 7, 2022

By Rob Smith / ecoRI News Staff — Next step: Panel will send a final report to the General Assembly with its recommendations

PROVIDENCE — The state’s study commission on shoreline access issues has reached a consensus: Rhode Island beachgoers should be able to legally travel along state shores 10 feet landward starting from the seaweed line.

House commission chair Rep. Terri-Cortvriend, D-Portsmouth, and vice chair Rep. Blake Filippi, R-New Shoreham, are expected to introduce legislation reflecting its recommendations.

The commission’s 12 members found themselves in broad agreement during a recent meeting on expanding the public’s right to pass along the shore up to the seaweed line. Individual members disagreed on the additional of space needed beyond that for beachgoers to access this right.

Rhode Island Realtors Association’s David Splaine argued that the seaweed line was sufficient, based on his observations at a beach near his home in Warwick’s City Park.

“If we choose the highest high-tide wrap line … potentially we have dry sand for people to walk on a high percentage of every tidal cycle,” he said.

Other commission members noted most of the trespassing complaints come from private property owners along the state’s southern shore, where high wind and wave energy makes finding dry sand to walk on much more difficult.

“There’s no question that Warwick park is not in that high-energy zone that we see in the south coast beaches,” University of Rhode Island professor Dennis Nixon said.

Private property owners and shoreline access advocates have been arguing for decades, as the commission learned over its six months of meetings. The Rhode Island Constitution enshrines rights to enjoy the privileges of the shore, but leaves unanswered the question of where on the shore do those rights begin and private property owners’ end?

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