MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • September 15, 2024
Since statehood, Maine courts have held that individuals can own land as far as the low-tide line, but the public is allowed to “fish, fowl and navigate” between the high and low tide marks. The language stems from a 1647 colonial ordinance that was enacted 170 years before Maine’s statehood. In 1989, it was at Moody Beach that the Maine Supreme Judicial Court upheld this private ownership system. Now more than 30 years later, two dozen people are asking the high court to reconsider their ruling.