The Independent — Fight over coastal access continues as activists stage protest
Bob DeFilipi, of Charlestown stands in front of private property on the border of Charlestown and South Kingstown during a protest on July 6 to show support for the public's right to shoreline access throughout the state. Photo: Michael Derr
July 13, 2019
By Bill Seymour — SOUTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. —The challenge to private beach owners wanting to stop public access to their land is far from over, says Scott Keeley, who organized a protest drawing more than 200 supporters to step over the Charlestown-South Kingstown line into the sand of exclusive beaches.
The Charlestown resident turned self-described renegade said the push will continue, most especially against the symbol that draws the ire of he and his followers: A security guard who stopped him from picking up seaweed a few weeks ago.
“We are currently asking everyone to revisit the same location to enjoy the shoreline and to ignore the security guard,” he said this week about the spot on Charlestown Beach Road at the South Kingstown town line where he was arrested in June.
Keeley challenged the security guard’s presence at a nearby private beach adjoining the Charlestown public beach. He was arrested for trespassing, but charges were later dropped because evidence about the line he crossed was too difficult to prove, police said.
The exact location of public access on private beaches is not clear and the Rhode Island Constitution only references a right of way. Over the decades there have been various debates, legal challenges to determining the location and differing ways to measure.
The latest moving target, set by the Rhode Supreme Court, is called the mean high-tide line averaged over 18.6 years. That is one line to remove from the books, according to many of the 200 people of all ages who came Saturday to join Keeley in a beach protest.
“It should be 10 feet from the water to where the sand starts to get dry,” said Deborah Carney, vice president of the Charlestown Town Council.
She referenced the much-used “width of an ox-cart” - considered 10 feet from wheel-to-wheel - used at the time RI constitutional framers set down a constitutional right access without a defined measure.
“You didn’t have houses like we have then. They collected seaweed for fertilizing. The ox cart was pulled along the shore line and that is the way they would have measured it,” said James Bedell, a shoreline access activist.
Regardless of measurement, though, Keeley and his supporters have stirred up passion and interest this summer.
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