Press & News

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Save the Bay — Digging Deeper: Public Access in Rhode Island

By Save The Bay’s Policy Team — Save The Bay’s vision of “a fully swimmable, fishable Narragansett Bay,” concludes with a critical detail: “accessible to all.” While there is no doubt that the Rhode Island Constitution specifically protects the public’s right to access and use the shore, the exact location of that public shoreline is harder to locate than you might think…

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Projo — Public Street was blocked off to the public…

By Antonia Noori Farzan — From its name, you'd assume that Public Street was intended for the public. But before the attorney general's office intervened last winter, fences blocked off the road's eastern terminus where it meets the Providence River.

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Wash Post — Who can use the beach? Erosion, tide lines and state laws make a difference.

By Thomas Ankersen — … On most U.S. shorelines, the public has a time-honored right to “lateral” access. This means that people can move down the beach along the wet sand between high and low tide — a zone that usually is publicly owned. Waterfront property owners’ control typically stops at the high tide line or, in a few cases, the low tide line.

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The Public’s Radio — R.I. House to study public access to the coastline

By Alex Nunes — For years, advocates for shoreline access have clashed with coastal homeowners over where the public has the right to be along the waterfront, and fighting has only increased during the pandemic. On Wednesday, the Rhode Island House of Representatives passed legislation to initiate a study of shoreline access in the Ocean State.

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