Lippincott bought a house with 1.2 acres in coastal Avalon for $500,
raising the money by selling a single rare stamp. In 2000, Lippincott’s
descendants put the property on the market for $3.5 million. The coast
is now fully developed, with the result that a “100-year storm” would
be far more devastating today than it would have been 50 years ago.
Taxpayers will foot much of the bill for any rebuilding, since flood
insurance is federally guaranteed.
The public trust doctrine, derived from English common law, says
that states hold lands under tidal and navigable waterways in trust for
their citizens. The concept has been incorporated into many state con-
stitutions, and is generally interpreted as guaranteeing public access to
shorelines up to the mean high tide mark. The town of Greenwich,
Connecticut, fought a long and ultimately losing battle to maintain the
exclusivity of its beaches that went as far as the State Supreme Court. It
began when local attorney Brenden Leyden was turned away from jog-
ging at a Greenwich beach, and it continued for 6 years. Fortunately for
citizens not lucky enough to live in one of the United States’s wealthi-
est towns, the public trust and First Amendment (claiming that the
beach is a “traditional public forum”) arguments eventually prevailed.
What does global warming have to do with beach access? Quite a
lot, actually. The northern New Jersey coast is now mostly in private
hands, and the public has only limited access to surf and sand. The
scene is set for self-interest. The property owners who benefit the most
from beach replenishment use their political clout not to enrich the
shoreline commons, but to protect their own land values, sometimes
with the active assistance of community leaders.
The I’m-in-it-for-myself mentality dictates more privately built jet-
ties and seawalls, which accelerate the erosion damage caused by ris-
ing sea levels. And it means security guards and high fences on what
was once open shore. Meanwhile, the public, by the very fact of their
exclusion, loses its interest and its stake in protecting a coastal
resource it can only see through locked gates. Sixty-seven-year-old Sea
Girt resident Bob Devlin told the Philadelphia Inquirer, “I gave up going
to the beach there a long time ago.”
Public access and beach replenishment collide head on in Long
Beach Township communities such as Loveladies and North Beach. To
50 Jim Motavalli with Sherry Barnes