{"id":29583,"date":"2025-01-21T07:14:38","date_gmt":"2025-01-21T12:14:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/?p=29583"},"modified":"2025-02-10T13:58:31","modified_gmt":"2025-02-10T18:58:31","slug":"winter-2025-public-trust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/winter-2025-public-trust\/","title":{"rendered":"Public Trust"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n
\"aerial<\/a>
Rich Inlet. Credit: Army Corps of Engineers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

“If you don\u2019t let us fish in peace, the Attorney General\u2019s office and the News & Observer<\/em> will soon learn there is a private North Carolina ocean beach not open to the public.” <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Came the news that a man in the business of purveying surfboards and such could not easily, legally get to the North Carolina surf because no public access walks existed anywhere along the twelve miles of Currituck County seabeach known as Duck. The town of Duck threw up its municipal hands, not knowing how to fix the problem \u2014 for all the oceanfront there had been privately developed before <\/em>the town incorporated, an official said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And regularly comes further news that, in beach towns where state-directed public beach access points do exist, sufficient car-parking for folks to make use of them often does not.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A far cry from when I was a boy, when families walked onto the seabeaches across empty lots, open sand near fishing piers (and there were many<\/em>).  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The beaches belong and have always belonged to the people of North Carolina, in public trust<\/em> \u2014 that is, the area below<\/em> the mean high-tide line. Getting across the privately<\/em> held dry sand above the wet sand and the narrow line and scurf the high tides have left, there was the rub of the old have and have-not brush.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And there have also been times when, even though the beach may have been approached from the ocean, the people\u2019s right<\/em> has been challenged, at times abridged.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A case in point:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The inveterate master-fisherman and naturalist Tom Earnhardt once came around from the great mile-wide marshes between the Intracoastal Waterway and the sea, and motored through Rich Inlet into the ocean waters in his skiff, following a school of Spanish mackerel after bait-fish. When the Spanish moved close in to shore, into the light morning surf, Tom and an angling friend hopped out of the boat and pursued the mackerel on foot in the surf not far from the boat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In no time at all, he saw out of the corner of his eye an animated man running his way, urgently waving his arms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou have to leave, you have to go!\u201d said the man. \u201cThis is private beach. You can\u2019t be here!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m just fishing, following some Spanish,\u201d Tom said. \u201cI won\u2019t be here long.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t be here at all,\u201d the man said. \u201cThis is privately-owned beach<\/em>. You have to leave now<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, sir, I don\u2019t,\u201d said Tom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes, you do \u2014 leave now!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tom Earnhardt, one of the first attorneys for the environment the State of North Carolina ever hired, back under Attorney General Robert Morgan, has always been a genial man, slow to anger but very quick to respond to the unfair, the out-of-bounds, the illegal, as he did now, saying:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSir, I am an attorney, I have worked in the Attorney General\u2019s office, and I know the law. This beach is public \u2014 publicly owned<\/em> \u2014 up to the high-tide mark.  I am disturbing no one, and I will not be here long.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then he went back to fishing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019d better not be here when I get back,\u201d said the man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCan\u2019t say that I won\u2019t be,\u201d Tom said calmly, over his shoulder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the man returned, he brought along a bigger, bruter fellow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a holstered pistol on his hip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s the problem here?\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019ve been told this is a private beach and you have to leave.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tom held his fishing rod tight and faced the two men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"image:<\/a>
Near Figure Eight Island. Credit: NC State University Photos.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is no problem, sir. I know what the law is, and I know that this surf belongs to the people of North Carolina. If you don\u2019t let us fish in peace, the Attorney General\u2019s office and the News & Observer<\/em> will soon learn there is a private North Carolina ocean beach not open to the public. I don\u2019t think you or your employers will want to read about it in the newspaper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The man with the pistol put his right hand upon his holster but made no other move.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI plan to be here fishing these Spanish for a few more minutes,\u201d Tom said, \u201cand that\u2019s all there is to it. Good day, gentlemen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So Tom Earnhardt and his friend went back to fishing again. The two Figure Eight gatekeepers grumbled and cussed and wandered off, muttering about repercussions, while Tom, who dislikes confrontation yet dislikes even more such bullying as privilege often puts forth, felt he had had to, once again, not simply establish but proclaim <\/em>the basic right of ownership and fair use that every Carolinian, monied or not, has to every bit of our many public-trust waters and wet sand \u2014 those whose waves break upon three hundred miles of seabeach and on ten thousand miles of sound-country shorelines \u2014 in our state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, Tom recalled cheerfully years after his set-to, the Spanish were really biting that day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More from Bland Simpson in Coastwatch<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Remembering Hazel<\/a>“<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Straits by Skipjack\u201d<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCrossing the Mighty Neuse<\/a>\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOut at Hatteras<\/a>\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis Wet and Water Loving Land<\/a>\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ghost Ship of Diamond Shoals: The Mystery of the Carroll A. Deering<\/em> <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two Captains from Carolina: Moses Grandy, John Newland Maffitt, and the Coming of the Civil War<\/a><\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

on writing Two Captains<\/em> <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More from Bland Simpson<\/strong><\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bland Simpson, <\/strong>North Carolina\u2019s oft-honored voice of our state\u2019s coast, recently taught his final class as Kenan Distinguished Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the pianist for the Red Clay Ramblers, the Tony Award-winning string band, and has collaborated on such musicals as Diamond Studs<\/em>, Fool Moon<\/em>, Kudzu, and King Mackerel & The Blues Are Running<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FROM THE WINTER 2025 ISSUE<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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