Walking on the beach is a simple yet legally complex act. The Public Trust Doctrine guides how we access, use, and enjoy certain water bodies. However, states differently interpret and apply certain tenets of this doctrine, including whether and where the public can walk the shoreline. Director, Professor, and Lynde B. Uihlein Endowed Chair Melissa Scanlan and Water Science and Policy Communications Fellow Will Matuska write in The Conversation about the ways the public is excluded from reaching the water’s edge — even when that right is protected by the public trust — and how communities respond.
Read it at The Conversation.
Read more of our published work on the Public Trust Doctrine.