Public oversand vehicle access over a stretch of trail on Chappaquiddick was halted this week after the latest ruling in an ongoing court battle between Cape Pogue homeowners and the Trustees of Reservations.
State Land Court judge Sarah Turano-Flores on Monday granted Victor and Dawn Colantonio a preliminary injunction that prevents the Trustees, which manages the trails that criss-cross Chappy, from allowing the public to drive over the Colantonios’ land just north of Tom’s Neck.
The question of who is allowed to take their four-wheel drive vehicles over which easements has been a contentious topic in recent years. The Colantonios sued the Trustees in 2022, claiming the conservation nonprofit did not have the right to sell permits to the public to drive out to some of the northernmost sections of Cape Pogue.
Monday’s ruling was based on easements going back 135 years, and came after the judge last month said that the Trustees had already overstepped what was allowed under an 1800s easement.
The preliminary injunction stops the Trustees from allowing oversand vehicle permit holders from crossing the trails north of an area known as Division Lot 1 until the overall case is decided. A trial is scheduled for March 2027.
Public access to the trails that lead to Chappy’s beaches has been a contentious issue in recent years, resulting in several legal complaints and testy public hearings.
Access for the area in question in the Colantonio lawsuit remains open by foot or by boat. Other parts of Chappaquiddick, including Leland Beach and the area north of the Dike Bridge before the lot, will remain open to oversand vehicles.
In a statement Tuesday, the Trustees called the ruling disappointing but vowed to continue fighting for public access to the trail.
“This action by the Court will curtail OSV operations at [Cape Pogue], limiting access to this extraordinary place for Chappaquiddick residents and visitors for the first time since 1959,” the nonprofit wrote. “While this is a deeply disappointing outcome for everyone, The Trustees will continue working to provide meaningful access to this special place.”
The Colantonios’ lawyer Denise Chicoine appreciated the judge’s ruling.
“The Trustees were behaving as a business, not a conservation entity by treating Cape Poge as a means of raising revenue,” she said. “The preliminary injunction is an appropriate restraint and is the right decision from an environmental perspective. The Trustees can use their own tour trucks to provide members of the public with access to the lighthouse.”
The Trustees had tried to argue that the trail in question on Division Lot 1 was not actually the trail that was being referred to in the 1891 easement. Instead, the trails being used now, the Trustees contended, were part of a 1988 easement, which did allow for wider use.
But Judge Turano-Flores was not convinced by the argument.
“The Trustees point to no survey, plan or photographic evidence to support their claim that the network of OSV trails that traverse Division Lot 1, including the primary trail, are not in the same location as” the trail in the 1891 easement, the judge wrote.
The court also reasoned that, since only a few dozen or so people traverse the trails up to the area by the Colantonios, it would not cause widespread harm to the Trustees.
“As the Trustees note in their opposition, most of the OSV permit holders travel south to Leland Beach, and those few that do travel north from Dike Bridge, do not often make the ‘long slow trek’ further north to the [Cape Pogue] Lighthouse,” Judge Turano-Flores wrote in her 19-page decision.
Though there might not be many people going that far north, cutting off the trail to the public is still a loss for beachgoers and fishermen, said Peter Sliwkowski, the president of the MV Beachgoers Access Group.
“This isn’t about how many people travel farther up the beach on a particular day,” he said. “It is about miles of shoreline they are no longer realistically able to reach.”
The court previously said the Trustees could still use the trail on the Colantonio property for internal use or public tours, but that is still limiting for fishermen.
“Fish don’t arrive according to a shuttle schedule,” Mr. Sliwkowsi said. “Fishing Cape Pogue is dictated by tides, weather, bait and migrating fish. You may need to arrive before daylight, stay after dark or move as conditions change.”
The court held a hearing last week to talk about the schedule of the case as it heads to trial. The trial is set for March 15 through 19 in Boston.
At the Sept. 22 hearing, the Trustees attorney said the 1988 easement remains a question for trial. The Trustees are also arguing that because the nonprofit used the trails for decades, it should be allowed to do so under a prescriptive easement.
This article appears in October 2 2026.
If people have any hope of restoring access again they need to stop vilifying the homeowners. These families shared Cape Pogue with the public for generations. In return, they have endured years of litigation, accusations, demands, and hostility for finally insisting that the Trustees respect the limits of their rights and respect the land they purport to protect.
Nothing better illustrates the deterioration of the Trustees’ stewardship than the Cape Pogue Lighthouse itself. This treasured historic landmark has been allowed to fall into heartbreaking disrepair while the organization continues to invoke “public access” as its rallying cry. Access and stewardship are not the same thing.
The court got this right. Public access to Cape Pogue has always depended upon cooperation, respect, and responsible stewardship. When an organization destroys that relationship and then turns to litigation to demand what its neighbors once willingly shared, it should not be surprising when those neighbors finally say enough.
Bravo for your thought processes. Property rights are paramount to a healthy society. Infringements need to be extinguished.
A correction: The Trustees don’t actually own the Cape Pogue Lighthouse structure. It’s still US Federal property, though obviously hosted on Trustees land.
It’s my understanding the US Govt. paid The Trustees a yearly maintenance stipend to maintain the lighthouse.
The Trustees would not have what they do if it hadn’t been for the generosity of the families they are now suing. After the treatment these families have endured, perhaps the better question is not, “Why won’t the homeowners share?” It is: Why would anyone expect them to keep sharing with neighbor that has treated them this way?
Soft tires in the 1920’s and 1930’s helped in soft sand, then the WW2 jeeps were fantastic. The Germans captured some and really like them, the Russians loved them. Still a lot of this controversy is the technology of recent decades that makes big 4wd rigs affordable. I have to admit that I like it when the beaches are closed because it makes the roads a lot safer for kids on bikes, those rigs really roar past fast. Also all legal issues aside, it sure seems an odd pastime to drive on the beach. There’s really no beach driving in the state of California. Lots of walking though, much better for the health. Massachusetts has a lot of obscure waterfront laws, no new docks for example.
Whatever happened to the colonial rule that states people can only own to the highwater mark and below that anyone can pass thru.
The MA 1648 ‘rule’ refers to the ‘mean low water line’ and allows the following:
MGL c. 91 Waterways
Section 1 maintains the historical right of access to fish or fowl, defining “Private tidelands”, as “tidelands held by a private party subject to an easement of the public for the purposes of navigation and free fishing and fowling and of passing freely over and through the water.”
” Nothing in this decision, therefore, should be construed as limiting 1) the public’s ability to access the Trustees’ properties by boat or by foot, 2) the rights of the Trustees and their employees, personnel, volunteers, agents or contractors to traverse the Partition Ways in Trustees-owned and operated vehicles (including those transporting members of the public), or 3) the public’s rights to fish, fowl and navigate within the intertidal area, as those rights are protected by the Colonial Ordinances of 1641 – 1647.”
“By boat or foot”. I don’t own a boat, and the walk from the parking lot to the impacted beaches is 4 miles. Would you consider South Beach publicly accessible if you had to park and walk from Stop and Shop? Of course not. This is why the public is confounded by this injunction.
By this action, the public has been denied practical access to public beaches. These beaches represent 17% of the public beach frontage on our Island. On the other side of the equation, 11 private landowners have been effectively granted those same public beaches. This would rank as the largest wealth transfer in the history of the Commonwealth. Does that sound equitable to anyone?
This may seem ironic coming from me, laws matter and the Judge is only ruling based on the existing law. The Edgartown has every right through eminent domain to acquire an access road for the public. Just pay the true value for the access road. As the land is unbuildable, it would not be expensive for Edgartown to take by eminent domaine (public good) an access road 20′, maybe a couple hundred thousand dollars at most. Let’s start fundraising now and give Edgartown the $$$.
Access has not been denied, motor vehicle access has.
This is a tragedy. Sorry Marcus but I don’t know who else to attribute the removal of access to than the plaintiffs.