MAINE PUBLIC • August 21, 2023
Enter Moody Beach in the coastal town of Wells and you'll be greeted by signs that declare it's private property. And if there's any question where the public beach ends and the private beach begins, a line of seaweed piled on the sand by one of the homeowners makes it clear. The seaweed border is emblematic of a legal dispute between shoreline homeowners and public beachgoers. About 100 people rallied at the beach on Saturday to draw attention to the issue. In 1989, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruled that private property rights extend down to the low tide mark based on a colonial-era law from the 1600s that carves out an exception for limited public use: for fishing, fowling, and navigation. Now a lawsuit seeks to expand and modernize the list of the activities the public is allowed to do on the sand in front of private property owners, from beachcombing to building sandcastles.