The Fight for Underwater Land Ownership (Feat. MC Climate Change)

[F.X Clampazzo]

Fight Grows Over Who Owns Real Estate Drowned by Climate Change

A decade after the global financial crisis popularized the term “underwater real estate,” parts of the U.S. are grappling with a new, more literal version of that problem.

“There’s no question it will be a huge fight,” says Holly Doremus, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley who specializes in environmental law. “We don’t exactly know the boundaries of what the state can do.” For centuries, a body of law called the public trust doctrine has stipulated that, when it comes to coastal property, anything below the average high-tide line is owned by the government for the use and benefit of the public. Those rules also cover what happens when the high-tide line moves. If that movement happens suddenly—for example, if a portion of beach is washed away by a storm—the land owner retains title to the property provided he or she restores it to dry land.

By contrast, if the high-tide line moves slowly, state ownership moves with it. And because it’s Mother Nature taking the land, not the government, there’s no legal requirement for the government to compensate property owners. Legal scholars say climate change has scrambled that distinction. “How do you characterize sea level rise? Is it fast or slow?” asks Josh Eagle, a University of South Carolina professor who specializes in coastal law. “Those rules don’t really make as much sense anymore.”

That uncertainty has compounded the awkward politics of governments taking control of private land without paying for it—especially in Southern and Gulf states with a tradition of protecting private property, and where sea level rise is happening fastest.

[Sableye]

"how do you characterize climate change?"
pretty easily, the apocalypse.