Here is a snapshot of our conversation, edited for clarity and brevity: Rising water is also forcing us, willing or not, to reconsider what it truly means to project Western notions of permanence along a line inherently meant to change each day with the tide. It gives us a chance to reassess what we value as Californians, and what principles we want to stand for going into the future. ![]() Sea level rise is posing unprecedented challenges, Huckelbridge told me, but it is also an opportunity. What we discussed was admittedly a bit wonky at first: We caught up on the commission’s new “ Public Trust Guiding Principles and Action Plan,” and Huckelbridge expressed the need to create a map or inventory of sorts, to pinpoint which beaches will need the most urgent attention as the public trust line runs up against seawalls and other hardened boundaries.īut then our conversation took an interesting philosophical turn. She has navigated her fair share of complicated issues, such as offshore oil drilling and power plant permitting, and, for a time, she also served as the agency’s tribal liaison. An environmental engineer by training and no-nonsense in her ways, Huckelbridge is not one to sit on conflict. To make sense of some of these questions, I called up Kate Huckelbridge, who was recently appointed to lead the California Coastal Commission into its next chapter. So when all that we hold dear cannot be saved, what becomes the priority? Studies have also found that two-thirds of our beaches in Southern California could drown in the coming decades. Squeezed out, too, between rising seas on one side and human infrastructure on the other, are the vanishing salt marshes that once nurtured many of the world’s most endangered species. But sea level rise has made things a lot more complicated: What happens when the tide line starts to move inland because of climate change? At what point does private property become public property - and how do we draw that line? ![]() These lines in the sand were all fine and good when we still had ample sand to go around. The state, and therefore the public, has rights to most land covered and uncovered by the tide (i.e., the beach), as well as lands that were historically below the tide line but have since been artificially drained or filled (i.e., wetlands). Which brings us to where we are today: Along the California coast, the public trust is delineated by the mean high tide line. that “the following things are natural law common to all: the air, running water, the sea, and consequently the seashore.” This notion - that certain lands should be held in trust by the government for the benefit of all people - evolved into English common law, which the United States then adopted and California later wrote into its state constitution. The Coastal Act is a remarkable commitment to the public trust doctrine, which traces back to Justinian I, who declared in 533 C.E.
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