Mike -
FWW is probably right - with MikeP being an attorney and a NY resident, he may be a valuable resource for you and answer questions specific to NY.
In RI, we now face - and have faced in the past - issues concerning access. Fortunately for us, the University of Rhode Island undertook a study of all the public rights of way in the state and published their findings - with maps - in a spiral bound volume that you should be able to find pretty easily by a Google search. Don't remember exactly the title (oddly enough, the Sea Grant people who were involved in the study had a booth right next to one I was showing my work in at the RISAA show in Prov. this past weekend).
Anyway, if nothing like this exists in NY for you to help address your problem, perhaps seeing the URI Sea Grant study will serve as a guide for you in where to look. It was done with Federal funding though I'm not sure when - but fairly recently.
If this sort of thing doesn't exist for you, you've got a long dusty trail ahead of ya. If I were you I'd find a group of like-minded people to help you out - discovering information on rights of way will take a lot of time and legwork, as you no doubt know by now. Your fishing club is certainly the best place to start, if nothing's been done yet by any local agencies to delineate the right of way, use your club elders as a resource to establish historical usages. Like I said, find people to get involved, but it sounds like you might have already - the old saw about many hands making light work will be true in this case. But check state or federal resources first - it may be easier than you think.
We have a number of similar situations going on here in RI and at the next Newport County Saltwater Fishing Club meeting a week from today I'm gonna donate some money from a raffle I held at the RISAA show to help establish a shoreline access defense fund to insure that we - and our children and grandchildren - will be able to continue to fish the same spots we've all enjoyed for years. In RI those riparian rights were granted to all residents by state charter in colonial times for the purposes of gathering fish and shellfish and the gathering of seaweed by ox and horsecart to be used as fertilizer.
Sorry if this was long-winded but it's a complex issue to deal withand a
lot of places along the Eastern seaboard are dealing with the same issue. Ultimately, it's all about the money involved with shorefront properties. Everyone in RI thinks the prices for oceanfront properties here are obscene but in relative terms they're bargain-basement priced for those people from CT and New York who have deeper pockets than us. Hell, priced anything in the Hamptons lately?
At any rate, good luck, Mike - fight the good fight.
Hey, if memory serves I remember you saying you're a surfer too -we've posted in regards to it before, I know - just remember, don't back down, dude.
If ya need anything else, PM me. Maybe DZ will jump in here (he's dealt with this sort of thing before here in Newport) or Fish_Eye, who may be able to give you contacts within URI's Sea Grant (Mike's done work for them) who could then pass you on to the Feds. I think getting URI's public access book would be a great start for ya just to let you see what was done elsewhere.
Best of luck -
