Yet Mr. Porter and his neighbors aren't railing at Mother Nature. Rather, they are angry with the state of Texas, which notified the homeowners in 1999 that, due to the erosion, their houses were in the public right of way on the beach and the state could eventually require the homes' removal or demolition.
In the ensuing months, 14 houses were moved off the beach, and nine others were bought by the village and demolished. Today, only 14 remain on the beach.
Those owners, as well as some who have since relocated, sued the state and the village in 2001 in state court to block the removal of their houses. "They just can't take our land and not compensate us fairly for it," says the 67-year-old Mr. Porter. "It's just wrong in so many aspects."
The Surfside Beach standoff illustrates the challenges of defining the boundary between public and private property on constantly eroding beaches, as well as maintaining public access to those shores. From the beaches of Hawaii and California to those in New Jersey and Florida, regulators and property owners are haggling over how to define the boundary when the water line to which it is pegged continually shifts.
Property owners are battling in some states over so-called building setbacks, which dictate how far new structures must be built from the water. Hawaiian counties, for example, require that new construction be at least 20 feet and often up to 40 feet inland of the shoreline.
In recent years, some landowners planted salt-tolerant plants at their seaward property line, hoping the vegetation line would serve as the shoreline for setback purposes even if the tide sometimes extended past the plants. The state agreed in some cases, but concerned neighbors and environmental groups sued to have the issue clarified. Hawaii's Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that the starting point for setbacks is the highest wash of the waves at high tide, regardless of vegetation.
The biggest fight has been over public access to beaches. States such as Maine and Massachusetts allow landowners to shut off public access to beaches on their property. Others including Florida and New Jersey define state property as anything seaward of the mean high-tide line. A few, notably Texas and Oregon, go further by requiring that the public be allowed access inland to the vegetation line, even if it results in beachgoers rambling onto private land. California regulators recently resolved a years-old legal battle in tony Malibu, where movie producer David Geffen balked at allowing the public to walk along the edge of his property to get to the beach. Under pressure from public-access group Access for All, he eventually agreed to allow anyone to use a pathway adjacent to his beachfront mansion.
In Florida, erosion from storm surges in 1999 and 2004 turned private waterfront property into what Volusia County, home to Daytona Beach, claimed was a public right of way where beach-cruising motorists could drive and park their cars. The county's rationale was that motorists had driven along that section of beach for years, and the movement of the shoreline should not interfere with the custom. Three property owners represented by property-rights law firm Pacific Legal Foundation sued the county, and a state appellate court ruled in their favor last year.
Texas' mandate to allow extensive public access to its shores has its roots in the state's days as a Spanish colony when wagons and horsemen used the beach as a thoroughfare. That free-roaming sentiment was formalized in 1959 in the Texas Open Beaches Act, which identifies as state land anything seaward of the mean high-tide mark and requires unimpeded public access from the water to the shore's vegetation line. So, if a storm surge scours away the grass around a home -- as happened to Mr. Porter and his neighbors during storms in 1998 and 2001 -- the house suddenly is in the public's path and the state can order it removed as a hindrance to public access.
Surfside Beach, a seaside getaway 65 miles south of Houston, counts fewer than 800 year-round residents but hosts thousands of summertime vacationers. Beach erosion is a big problem here. Village officials estimate the Gulf of Mexico has encroached inland by 200 feet since 1980. Neighbors on Beach Drive -- the street that runs along the shoreline -- point to watermarks on their pilings to illustrate that the beach's sand level recently was six feet higher. The beach's plants and grasses, which once extended 50 feet seaward of the houses, have retreated well inland of them.
"It might be your land, and you're able to pay taxes on it," Mayor James Bedward said. "But once it becomes submerged, it's no longer that way. It becomes state land. They're all on a public beach right now."
The Texas General Land Office, which regulates land issues including beach access, notified several Surfside Beach homeowners in 1999 and thereafter that their houses had wound up on the public beach and could face removal. Mr. Porter responded to the state's salvo by rallying his neighbors and hiring Houston attorney Ted Hirtz and the Pacific Legal Foundation to sue.
As the suit slowly proceeded, the homeowners' plight grew more dire. In October 2006, a surge of seawater further ravaged the beach and knocked out water, sewer and electrical services to the Beach Drive houses. Village officials refused to reconnect water and sewer service, explaining that the Open Beaches Act prohibited them from repairing private structures that illegally occupy public property or rights of way. The village also dumped a line of rubble along the seaward shoulder of Beach Drive, protecting the road from erosion by the waves but also blocking Mr. Porter and his neighbors from pulling cars into their driveways.
The beach houses have languished mostly uninhabitable for the past year, their external stairways and carports collapsing as the sea undermines them. Meanwhile, several Beach Drive neighbors took advantage this year of offers from the village and state to move or buy out their properties. The state has granted reimbursement of up to $50,000 each for owners who hoist their house upon a trailer and move it elsewhere. The village landed a $1.2 million federal grant this year that allowed for buyouts.
Most of the owners of the 14 remaining houses on the beach are staunch holdouts. Some say they want the state to save their houses by replenishing the beach. Absent that, they say the village should pay them fair-market value for their houses and their land.
For every solution the homeowners propose, the village and the state raise a counterargument because public money cannot be used to "enhance" private property by dumping sand around the houses. The village has so far refused to condemn the offending houses for fair-market value, noting that their state of disrepair and the pending lawsuit make determining their value difficult.
Both sides anticipate that a state judge soon will formally dismiss the lawsuit. The neighbors plan to appeal and seek an injunction barring removal of their houses as the appeal is heard.
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