(upbeat music) - [Michelle] Tonight, a battle for Rhode Island's shores.

- I truly believe everyone should have access to the beach.

- We are fighting for private property rights.

- I like to tell people that I chase bees for a living.

- [Pamela] Then, why are researchers on a mission to collect Rhode Island bees?

- [Michelle] And everything you ever wanted to know about our beloved quahog?

- I've actually had them as big as my hand where you couldn't see my fingers.

(bright music) (bright music continues) - Good evening and welcome to Rhode Island PBS Weekly.

I'm Michelle San Miguel.

- And I'm Pamela Watts.

We begin tonight with a decades-long dispute about beach access.

- The Rhode Island Constitution stipulates that people have the right to enjoy, "The privileges of the shore."

But how do you define the shore, who owns it, and who controls the pathways to the beach?

These are questions that have spurred scores of legal battles.

Ones that have only become more heated in recent years.

As part of a collaboration with The Public's Radio, reporters Isabella Jibilian and Alex Nunes, take an in-depth look at the controversy over who gets to spend a day at the beach.

(water rambling) - [Isabella] The Quonochotaug Barrier Beach.

It's a beautiful 1.7 miles of sand, but it's also the site of an ugly dispute consuming the town of Westerly.

- Nine months a year, we welcome anybody to walk across our private property to get to the beach.

- [Isabella] Bob McCann is the moderator of the Weekapaug Fire District.

It's a position akin to mayor.

Weekapaug owns the trail that leads to this beach.

- During the summer, they can access the sand up to nine o'clock in the morning and after six o'clock at night.

During the summer, we exercise our right to private property rights.

- I truly believe everyone should have access to the beach.

This is really an issue of, you know, sort of the haves and the have nots.

(footsteps thudding) - [Isabella] Ellen Kane, a Westerly resident, says Weekapaug has unfairly monopolized this stretch of sand.

She says a public path used to exist next to the private trail on land called the Spring Avenue Extension.

- And then eventually, there was a fence that was put up and then vegetation was planted to block the public from using the space that they had used for a long time.

And they still wanna have the use of that beach be too limited in my opinion.

- [Isabella] Alex Nunes has been covering the dispute for The Public's Radio.

- The debate with Spring Avenue is really about, is this specific stretch of land a public right of way or is it private property where public access can be restricted?

- [Isabella] In recent years, he has seen debates like these escalate in towns along Rhode Island's shores.

There have been arguments.

- [Speaker] But this is a public right of way.

- Not from this point on.

- [Isabella] Altercations.

- I'm gonna have to ask you to leave.

- [Speaker] No, you don't actually.

- [Speaker] Where's the public access?

- Take it up with the town.

You're a real piece of work.

- [Isabella] And calls to the police.

- You're under arrest.

You are under arrest.

- The big debate and the disputes that we've seen in recent years are over specific rights of way to the beach.

- [Isabella] And these fights are costly for property owners and towns alike.

- I have submitted various public records requests over the years, and based on what Weekapaug has provided, they've spent in excess of $600,000 on legal expenses related to shoreline access cases.

And then from the town side, two Westerly town counselors have said that the town is spending roughly $20,000 each month on shoreline access cases.

- And right over here, this is another beach that is part of Weekapaug.

- [Isabella] Bob McCann gave me a tour of the disputed area.

- Weekapaug property, Weekapaug property, and that's the path that people use to access the beach nine months a year.

- [Isabella] On town maps, the Spring Avenue Extension is a 50-foot wide path located between a private home and Weekapaug Fire District land.

In front, there's public parking, and to its side, the Weekapaug footpath and private parking.

- The issue is property and private property rights.

- [Isabella] McCann points to documents like 64 private easements on the land that he says show they own and control the parcel.

He also says the matter has already been settled twice.

- In 2008, the then Town Council of Westerly hired an outside attorney.

He looked into the issue, studied the maps and the plots, and he determined that it's still a private piece of property.

In 2020, the Town Council, the then council of Westerly tried to determine whether or not it was public or private again.

This time they reaffirmed it.

- [Isabella] Ellen Kane says there's more to that story.

- The title attorney did his work and made a presentation saying, "I can't find absolutely in the land records anything that says that this is absolutely a public right of way."

But then he said, "But there's a lot of other evidence that is used ordinarily to declare a right of way that's outside of what the town hired me to do."

It's kind of like, you know, saying the X-ray didn't show anything and leaving out the part that says, but if you have an MRI or a CT scan, you know, that's likely to show the problem.

(water rambling) - [Isabella] The part they are leaving out Kane says, is that a public right of way can exist on private land.

It functions similarly to an easement.

And Kane says to figure out if there's a right of way, you have to look at the history of how the land was planned and used.

- There's very clear body of evidence saying that it is a public right of way.

- [Isabella] Activists point to this 1948 map, which labels a different street private, but the Spring Avenue extension a right of way.

- The aerial photos I find incredibly interesting.

- [Isabella] Kane says, you can see a path in photos estimated to be from the 1920s, thirties, and fifties.

- [Kane] You can see the two distinct paths.

- [Isabella] She also says, photos show the general public accessing the beach.

- And also there are some people who do remember, you know, using it.

When this comes to a hearing, they will be attesting to the fact that, you know, they know it was open and they used it.

- [Isabella] And today, Kane points to the row of public parking spaces that have existed for decades.

- The Fire District cannot, you know, logically, sensibly say that there are public parking spaces there that are filled only for people to listen to the sound of the waves.

And the fence is immediately in front of those parking spaces.

It says to me that there was access.

- Why would there be public parking in front of land that's not a public access point?

- Well, this is a public road, so I'm sure it's just an extension of the public road.

I don't know.

- [Isabella] Bob McCann has his doubts about the advocate's evidence.

- I've seen all the aerial photographs that they're all, you know, they're out there.

I will state that I have not seen a delineated trail.

I don't know anyone that can actually point out and say this was the path that was used.

- [Isabella] And in response to this 1920s photo.

- [Bob] I say that that's the current boardwalk path that exists today.

- [Isabella] And with regards to the maps, such as this one from 1948.

- Why would right of way be written on part of the map and private being written on other parts of the map?

- I gotta ask you to speak to my lawyer.

Speak to our legal team please.

- [Isabella] The Fire District's attorney was not available for an interview, but in response to our questions, he sent a statement writing in part, "There is no public right of way.

The parcel was never marked, cleared, graded, maintained, or used by the town or public.

The maps do not establish an intent to dedicate the parcel, and there has been no act of acceptance.

Dozens of witnesses testify that this parcel was never used as a right of way."

Records show that Weekapaug has spent in excess of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

How much are you willing to spend to fight for Spring Avenue?

- There is no reason to think that we're not gonna stop.

We like the facts.

The facts support us.

We are gonna be in this until we prevail.

- More than a million dollars, $2 million?

Is there any limit you think?

- We are going to do what we need to do to protect our private property rights?

(water rambling) - That protection has some, including activists and the Rhode Island chapter of the ACLU crying foul.

The Fire District has been criticized for what some call scare tactics.

For example, sending a notice to people that contributed to a GoFundMe that they could be deposed.

What do you consider them to be?

- I consider that to be our legal team doing everything they can to protect the private property rights of Weekapaug.

The dispute has also attracted the attention of Attorney General Peter Neronha who has joined the shoreline activist side of the case.

- I think the right of access of Rhode Islanders to enjoy our shoreline is something that the founders of Rhode Island took very seriously.

- [Isabella] Ultimately, the question of whether Spring Avenue will open to the public will be decided by hearings and in court.

These fights and a number of others currently being litigated have the power to shape the Rhode Island shore.

- Many of those could be decided in the next year, and it could be the difference between Rhode Island's shoreline is opened up to the public in a major way or is shut off from the public, maybe even more than it is now.

- And now, a new lesson about the birds and the bees.

Nearly 80% of flowering plants need pollinators in order to provide fruits and seeds.

Pollinators include hummingbirds, wasps, butterflies, and moths, even bats.

But the real champ of the ecosystem is the bee.

Since 2014, however, its population has been shrinking largely due to climate change.

In Rhode Island, there's an active effort to survey the essential insects and support their survival.

This story is part of our Green Seeker series.

- I like to tell people that I chase bees for a living.

So, I literally go around with some vials and a net and I go to flowers and net bees and collect them.

- [Pamela] Casey Johnson is busy as, well, a bee collecting these insects.

They're being studied at the Bee Lab on the University of Rhode Island's 85-acre East Farm in Kingston.

With a flick of the wrist she catches the creatures as they flip through the flowers, but these days bees are feeling the sting of climate change.

- Global warming is slowly shifting ranges of certain species of bees.

So, bees might be moving to higher altitudes or higher latitudes as well.

Moving a bit farther north as our climate is warming.

They're declining, not just in general, in relative abundance, but they're also declining in the species richness, which means we're losing species and species ranges are shifting.

We're losing species without even ever really knowing that they've existed in a space.

- [Pamela] Whether they exist or are becoming extinct is the quest of this wide ranging project.

The first bee census taken in Rhode Island.

Johnson and her team spread out in waist-high meadows to discover what breed of bees are buzzing and what flowers are attracting them.

It's to get an historic snapshot of the local bee population.

- [Dr. Alm] These are bees that we've collected over the years as part of the Bumblebee survey and also just a survey of the bees of Rhode Island.

- [Pamela] Dr. Steven Alm is director of the Bee Lab and a URI professor of plant sciences and entomology.

He is curating dozens of trays of bees, some bigger than the top of your thumb, others so minute you could mistake them for a fly, which means it can become a challenge to determine to be or not to be.

Do you sometimes get fooled by the insects?

- Oh yeah, sometimes they're bee mimics.

- [Pamela] How many bees are in Rhode Island?

- 250 plus species.

- You heard right more than 250 and counting in little Rhode Island.

Not only does Alm say he finds them all fascinating.

He says the wild and native variety of bees are vital to the ecosystem and food chain.

Responsible for more than 100 crops we eat and use every day.

Nearly 80% of plants need pollen grains containing reproductive cells to be transferred to male and female parts of the flower.

- Almost a third of our diet is responsible to animal pollinators, mostly bees.

So yeah, it was very important in our diet to have all this variety of fruits and vegetables.

It's pollinating all the native plants and so, that relationship would be lost if we don't have them.

- [Pamela] Alm also says it's critical wild and native bees thrive, because they do something to pollinate plants that honeybees often avoid.

- The honeybees don't like to do this buzz pollination, which is the bee actually grabs onto the flower parts, unhooks their wing muscles, and they vibrate their wing muscles and it's called sonication or buzz pollination.

And it shakes the pollen out of certain flowers like blueberry, cranberry, tomato, eggplant.

- [Pamela] The work to identify and catalog our native bee population is painstaking.

First, they go under the microscope for analysis to determine genus and species.

- Then they've got their tags, they're labeled, where it was collected, the date it was collected, and who collected it, and also who identified it.

We're playing a little catch up here trying to get our checklist of the bees of Rhode Island.

So, researchers in the future can compare what they have, you know, 50, 100 years from now and say, "Yeah, this group is declining or increasing or yeah, hopefully, increasing.

And we don't lose the bees.

- [Pamela] Although through their research they've recorded some are already lost.

- We had 12 species of bumblebees that we knew of before we started this survey.

We were only able to find seven of them.

So, we lost five species of bumblebees.

The number of flowers that they pollinate is enormous.

- He says bees are diminishing for a variety of reasons, pesticides, invasive plants and parasites, but the biggest culprit is global warming.

What is climate change doing to the native bee population?

- Well, you get flowers and the bees out of sync, because maybe the temperatures will force the flowers to come on earlier and the bees aren't quite ready yet.

- [Pamela] The mismatch causes bees to begin foraging when the plants are past prime, starvation can result.

Drought stress can cause a chemical shift reducing the scent that attracts bees to flowering trees and bushes.

Another interruption caused by climate change.

More frequent intense rainstorms affecting the majority of bees who live and raise their young underground.

- We have these flash floods that could be flooding areas where there's ground nesting bees and impacting them, but also having all of this rain leads to limited foraging ability, because the bees don't fly in the rain.

- So, the URI Bee Lab is establishing a new way to support habitat.

What is the project that you're working on that's going to help conserve the bee population?

- Well, I'm actually gonna be working with bumblebee nest boxes, kind of creating them and trying to attract them to live there.

- [Pamela] Ren Johnson, a graduate student says, "Many bees take up residence in abandoned chipmunk or field mice burrows.

These nesting boxes buried in the ground use a rodent aroma to attract the insects and they act much like a birdhouse.

- The actual box we have here is one of 300 boxes around Rhode Island.

We've got the lure compartment here, so that actually houses the chemical lure.

We've got our entrance hole up here and the whole box is sunk underground.

And we've got some nesting material in there that the bees can make their home out of.

- [Pamela] Managed honeybees flourish in hives, because their keepers can add sugar, water, and pollen when flowers are scarce.

Native and wild bees don't have the luxury of such supplements, but there is something you can do.

Expand your garden, more blooms equal more bees.

- Planting a diversity of flowers both in bloom times, so you have things blooming from April all the way down to the fall in October is ideal, and having a variety of flower types.

So, different color flowers.

- Bees prefer yellow, white, and blue native flowers.

You can find suggestions of varieties on the URI Bee Lab website.

With all your years of experience, professor, are you hopeful for the bee population?

- We're seeing more and more people very interested in helping out and doing what they can.

So, yeah, we're very encouraged.

- The word is getting out that these bees are in trouble and that we need to be doing more for them, because we need them all.

- Finally, tonight, we leave you with a closer look at Rhode Island's favorite clam, the quahog, as part of our continuing My Take series.

Last November, we traveled to Warwick's Oakland Beach to meet a man who knows a thing or two about the molluscs.

He's been digging them up for more than 30 years.

- This is a 12 month a year job.

I do this on average between 275 and 300 days per year.

I love my job, and every day is a challenge, and I love a challenge.

My name is Jody King and this is my take on quahogging.

(playful music) Quahog is a hard shell clam, it's a mollusc.

In Rhode Island, we call them quahogs.

Anywhere else in the country, they call them hard shell clams.

We are unique.

It's derived from an Indian name from the indigenous people of Rhode Island, the Narragansetts.

They're one of the few animals on Earth that never stop growing.

I've actually had them as big as my hand where you couldn't see my fingers.

So, I brought it to DEM.

They drilled a hole in it and determined that it was almost 150 years old.

You can eat a 12-year-old quahog as well as you can need 150-year-old quahog.

One's just bigger and one is smaller.

I got into quahogging as a child.

And if you had asked me when I was a child, if this would be my profession, I would've probably laughed.

But I watched a friend when I was 30 years old, catch a few clams and make a couple hundred dollars in an hour and a half, two hours.

I said, "This is it for me.

I found my job."

My day generally starts about four o'clock before the birds are even up.

I'm up and out of bed for breakfast, feed the dogs, walk down the street to my boat, hop on the boat and go to work.

(playful music) So yeah, this is when I go out early.

For the most part, when I get out there, I know where I want to go.

When I get there, I figure out the depth of the water.

I set up my pipes, and my rake, my handle, depending on the depth.

I throw them in and start pouring through the water blindly.

Everything for me depends on God and Mother Nature to give me conditions to move and the ability to do so.

(quahog rustling) And this will have bigger stuff in it, 'cause I went outta my area.

Every day is different.

No two days are the same.

I don't catch the same amount of clams two days in a row, because conditions change day by day.

So, I try for five, I hope for 1,000.

If I get it, I'm happy.

If I don't, I go out again tomorrow and start all over.

(playful music continues) You can make chowder, you can make stuffies, you can make casinos, you can make clams and pasta.

There's a myriad of things that you can make with clams.

Every one of them is good.

I haven't had a clam meal that I didn't love.

After 30 years you'd think I'd be sick of them.

I still love clams as much today as I did the first time I caught 'em.

My name is Jody King, and this has been my take on quahogging in Rhode Island.

- That's our broadcast this evening.

I'm Michelle San Miguel.

- And I'm Pamela Watts.

We'll be back next week with another edition of Rhode Island PBS Weekly.

Until then, please follow us on Facebook and X and you can visit us online to see all of our stories and past episodes at ripbs.org/weekly.

Or listen to our podcast on your favorite streaming platform.

Goodnight.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues)