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Sound Outlook – DEEP’s Spring online newsletter contains a catalog of CT lighthouses and an explanation of why Public Access is important. excerpt, below.
SPOTLIGHTED COASTAL RESOURCE:
The Public Trust Area
Connecticut has one of the highest coastal population densities in the nation, which has led to the development and private ownership of, and a shortage of public access to, most of our shoreline. One avenue that ensures the public has a protected right to shoreline access is the public trust area, which has been upheld across the world for centuries by the Public Trust Doctrine.
The Public Trust Doctrine, which grants the public rights to access the submerged lands of navigable waters, has origins dating back to Roman civil law under the reign of Emperor Justinian in the sixth century A.D., with roots as far back as the natural law of Greek philosophers in the second century. A section of Book II of the Institutes of Justinian remains the foundation of today’s Public Trust Doctrine:
“By the law of nature these things are common to all mankind – the air, running water, the sea, and consequently the shores of the sea. No one, therefore, is forbidden to approach the seashore, provided that he respects habitations, monuments, and the buildings, which are not, like the sea, subject only to the law of nations.”…
As mentioned in the preceding article, Connecticut’s lighthouses are important feats of engineering and relics of our state’s maritime history. However, they also provide examples of limited public access to Connecticut’s historic resources, especially for people eager to visit and photograph these scenic lighthouses. While the public trust area can be used to navigate around some of these land access issues, long stretches of private upland along the shore with no public access sites can obstruct the public from effectively using their rights to pass and recreate in the public trust area and to find closer views of the lighthouses. However, in cases where a nearby public access site gives residents a place to park and access the public trust area, a closer view of one of Connecticut’s distinctive lighthouses that would be otherwise impossible to access from inland roads may be a short walk or paddle away. And in cases where municipalities, whether independently or through partnerships with the Coast Guard or non-profits, work to provide public access at or near a lighthouse, these sites become iconic destinations on our coast where people can come to enjoy both the historic value of the lights and the recreational opportunity to experience the vastness of Long Island Sound, which the Public Trust Doctrine preserves as belonging to everyone.
The DEEP Land and Water Resources Division is committed to preserving and expanding public access wherever possible, and realizing that goal becomes much easier when citizens, non-profits, and municipal officials are willing to come together to form a broad coalition and create change in the spirit of Ned Coll’s lifelong fight for public access to our coastline. The greater the area accessible to the public, the more we can exercise our rights within the public trust area.
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