(gentle music) - I like to tell people that I chase bees for a living.

(laughing) - [Pamela] Tonight: Why are researchers on a mission to collect Rhode Island bees?

- [Michelle] Then, a battle for Westerly's shores.

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

- We are fighting for private property rights.

- [Michelle] And Rhode Island's new bishop with Ted Nesi.

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

I'm Pamela Watts.

- And I'm Michelle San Miguel.

We begin with some hopeful news about insects vital to our local food supply.

- Student researchers at the University of Rhode Island have discovered two bee species never before seen in the Ocean State.

While surveying wild cranberry bogs, they found the eastern cranberry bee and the nomad bee.

It is significant because since 2014, a variety of these important pollinators' population has been shrinking, largely due to climate change.

Tonight, we revisit a story on what's being done locally to encourage these stars of the ecosystem and what you can do to support their survival.

This segment is part of our continuing Green Seeker series.

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

(laughing) 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 insets.

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 father north as our climate is warming.

They're declining not just in general and 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.

- [Steven] 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 bee or not to bee.

Do you sometimes get fooled by the insects?

- Oh yes, sometimes they're bee mimics.

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

- 250-plus species.

- [Pamela] (laughing) 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 1/3 of our diet is responsible to animal pollinators, mostly bees.

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

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

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

- 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 outta certain flowers, like blueberry, cranberry, tomato, eggplant.

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

(machine clicking and whirring) 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."

You know, 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 'em.

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 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 going to be working with bumblebee nest boxes, kind of creating them and trying to attract them to live there.

- [Pamela] Wren 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 then 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 and 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.

- The URI Bee Lab's website has information on the native plants you can add to your garden to support the yellow bumblebee, which is in greatest need of conservation.

Up next: the fight over access to Rhode Island's shorelines.

The state's 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.

Last July, reporters Isabella Jibilian and Alex Nunes took an in-depth look at the controversy over who gets to spend a day at the beach.

(waves crashing) - [Isabella] The Quonochontaug 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.

(waves crashing) - 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 same 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 sorta the haves and the have-nots.

(feet thumping) - [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.

(buttons clicking) - [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.

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

- That's not from this point on.

- [Isabella] Altercations.

- I mean, I have the right to go in.

- [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.

- 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's side, two Westerly town councilors 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.

- [Bob] 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 plats, 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."

(waves crashing) - [Isabella] The part they're 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, '30s, and '50s.

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

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

- Then 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 were 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 we 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 advocates' 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.

- 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've gotta ask you to speak to my lawyer.

Speak to our legal team, please.

- 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're gonna be in this until we prevail.

- More than $1 million, $2 million?

Is there any limit, you think?

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

(waves crashing) - 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.

- [Isabella] The dispute has also attracted the attention of attorney general, Peter Neronha, who has joined the shoreline activists' 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 the fight over Spring Avenue continues in two arenas: Superior Court and the Coastal Resources Management Council.

Last week, the Weekapaug Fire District tried to stop the council from hearing the Spring Avenue case, but an activist, the Town of Westerly, and the Attorney General's Office successfully argued for the hearing to continue.

It was a small victory for shoreline activists.

Finally, on tonight's episode of "Weekly Insight," Michelle and our contributor, WPRI 12's politics editor, Ted Nesi, discussed the installation of the state's new Catholic bishop.

But first, why thousands of Rhode Islanders are scrambling to find a new doctor.

- Ted, welcome back, it's nice to see you.

We have been talking a lot here on "Weekly Insight" about issues within the Rhode Island healthcare sector.

This time it's a major medical practice in the news and not a hospital.

- Yes, Michelle, Anchor Medical Associates, which is a significant primary care practice in Rhode Island, they've announced they'll be shutting down by June 30.

They have about 25,000 patients it's estimated, children in the pediatric side of things and adults as well.

And in their message to patients, they echoed what we've been hearing from others, which is they argue that rates paid to providers in Rhode Island are just too low to make these practices financially viable.

- We've been discussing a lot the shortage of primary care physicians.

And so the obvious question is, if you're one of these 25,000 patients, who do you go see?

- Well, and they're asking that very question.

I've been getting emails from patients since I broke this story that, saying, "Well, we're calling around."

Some are being quoted 18- to 24-month waits at other practices.

Some patients hope that if their doctor is sort of mid-career, they might move to a new practice, take them with them, but there's no clarity yet on that.

So there's a lot of angst.

Governor McKee has said that his administration's working to see if some other practice would take over Anchor.

But Attorney General Neronha said he already looked at that and there just was no viable solution.

So it's a difficult problem.

- And the broader context here is how financially squeezed the state's healthcare providers have been saying they're feeling this.

And we've been hearing it from hospitals and now a major medical practice.

And unfortunately, there does not appear to be an easy fix.

- No, because it seems to be really about money, Michelle.

And people saying there needs to be more money in the healthcare system, higher rates.

But the state is currently running a deficit or projecting a deficit, I should say.

So it's hard for them to substantially increase Medicaid rates.

There's also been talk about building a state medical school that would train primary care physicians, but that's a very long-term plan, the pipeline.

It would take years before they'd be seeing patients.

So it's just a very thorny problem.

- And of course, it's an issue that we'll continue monitoring.

Let's turn now to one of the state's most prominent institutions, and that is the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence.

Pope Francis recently named Baltimore Bishop Bruce Lewandowski as the new bishop here in Rhode Island.

At a news conference, Bishop Bruce, as he wants to be known, was asked about how he plans to handle political controversy.

Let's take a listen to what he said.

- I've worked many years in the immigrant community, and apart from prayer, education, advocacy, and accompaniment.

Education, we need to know issues before we jump to quick judgments about things.

So government acts, it does things, and right away, our emotions might flare.

I always say, "Calm down, Bruce, stop, wait a minute.

Let's think this through.

Let's study it.

Let's try to get underneath what's going on and really find out what's happening."

And sometimes we're surprised.

Our first perceptions or ideas about things might not be correct or they might be off a little bit, or they might be correct.

(laughing) But you don't know that until you study things and delve into them a little bit.

- And Ted, we know from surveys that religious practice has fallen, especially over the last generation.

And yet, you and I both know, this position still remains very high-profile in Rhode Island.

- Yes, historically, Michelle, Rhode Island was ranked as the most Catholic state in the country.

The church is still a very prominent part of civic life, in politics at times as well.

And this is also a job that's seen an unusual amount of turnover in recent years.

Bishop Tobin had served for almost two decades.

He was appointed by Pope John Paul II.

He was there so long in the waning days of his pontificate.

Then Pope Francis named Bishop Henning to replace Bishop Tobin, but then quickly decided, "Actually I'm gonna move Henning to Boston," where he's now- - Right.

Right.

- The archbishop, leaving Providence open again, and now we have Bishop Lewandowski.

He's 57, born and raised on a farm in Ohio.

And one of the notable things about him, I think, Michelle, he speaks fluent Spanish and Portuguese and he's referenced his work with Hispanics and the immigrant community in his remarks.

So it'll be interesting to see if he weighs in on those issues.

- Especially because we know there are so many Spanish-speaking and Portuguese-speaking Catholics in this state.

- Yes.

- So I'm sure they're very happy to see that.

- There's a high percentage of people speaking Spanish going to mass right now, for sure.

- Yeah, always good to see you, thank you, Ted.

- Good to be here.

- That's our broadcast this evening.

Thank you for joining us.

I'm Pamela Watts.

- And I'm Michelle San Miguel.

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

Until then, please follow us on Facebook and YouTube.

And you can visit us online to see all of our stories and past episodes at ripbs.org/weekly.

Or listen to our podcasts on your favorite streaming platform.

Good night.

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