Legislators critical of Hatteras access study
National Park Service photo
Weighing in on a draft environmental impact statement on managing access, the two legislators denounced what they called the “shocking exclusion of useful data” on how the park service’s preferred alternative would affect the Hatteras Island economy.
Revenue impact on small businesses, the environmental statement says, would be “at the low end of the estimated range rather than the high end.”
“In September 2009, (the first full year under the consent decree) the beginning of the prime fall fishing season – Dare County as a whole experienced an unemployment rate of 6.8 percent, one of the lowest in the state, but when the North Carolina Division of Labor Marketing broke the unemployment down to zip codes it showed that Hatteras Island’s villages had extraordinary unemployment.
“The island as a whole had 12.8 percent unemployment. When broken down to the villages, Salvo was at 28 percent; Buxton 16.5 percent; and Rodanthe was 12.4.
“According to data provided by the Dare County Social Services, in 2009, the first full year under the Consent Decree, the Hatteras Island increase in individuals applying for food stamps was 81.6 percent over 2008. The remainder of Dare [north of Oregon Inlet] 56.6 percent, and the countywide 59.3 percent.
“In October 2009, Cape Hatteras United Methodist Men’s Emergency Assistance and Food Pantry reported that requests for food and other assistance in the seashore villages was continuing to rise. In 2008, the group paid out $56,000 the entire year to help with utility bills, rent, etc. but in 2009, the amount was surpassed before the end of October.”
“From our conversations with small business owners on Hatteras Island, any restriction in access will have severe economic impacts to their families, as the closures in the past years have,” Basnight and Spear wrote. ”In an already disastrous economy, the actions taken by the Court and the Service have proved devastating to all businesses and residents on Hatteras Island.
“For anyone to claim differently would be either a misguided statement of ignorance or just a pure falsification of the truth.”
The reference to the court concerns a consent decree that has guided seashore access for the past two years. It has resulted in large closures to protect nesting shorebirds, limiting access to some of the seashore’s most popular beaches. Although access issues include pedestrians, management debate has centered mainly on off-road vehicles.
With beaches that can be reached by off-road vehicles, the national seashore is a major tourist draw and a big driver of the Hatteras Island economy.
Elements of the park service’s preferred alternative seem intended to find a middle ground, but it was consistently criticized by proponents of broader beach access in public hearings last week.
It would keep 29 miles of seashore open year-round, with 23 miles seasonally designated from Aug. 1 to March 14. Sixteen miles would not be accessible. But it would bar ORVs year-round on the shorelines of the North Ocracoke Spit and Hatteras Inlet Spit and calls for 1,000-meter buffer zones to protect nesting shorebirds.
Environmental groups, mainly the Audubon Society and Southern Environmental Law Center, while conceding limited off-road vehicle access, want even stricter rules and larger areas of the seashore closed. They have argued that the park service’s primary duty is protecting resources, not facilitating access.
Comments by Basnight and Spear on four specifics in the parks service’s preferred alternative mirrored concerns voiced by Dare County officials: the need for corridors to get around closures, the size of the closures, the inclusion of species that are not covered under the federal Endangered Species Act and whether sea turtle nests can be moved.
A recommendation that buffers should be 1,000 meters in all directions of a fledgling piping plover chick would close 771 acres, the legislators said. They asserted that politics, not science, drove the recommendation.
“This seems a bit arbitrary and capricious when managing a species,” they wrote. “We have yet to read any scientific reasoning behind this management strategy. We would argue a buffer of 200 meters would be just as effective for the survival of a piping plover chick without the extreme penalization of the residents and visitors of Hatteras Island.”
They also questioned why species on a state list of concern would be afforded the same protection as those under the federal Endangered Species Act. Basnight and Spear wrote that they had consulted with state environmental officials who told them that was not the intent of their involvement in developing a management plan. The legislators said that the piping plover is the only species considered threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
They also urged the park service to allow sea turtle nests to be moved to higher elevations for protection.
“The United States Fish and Wildlife Service practices this management tool in Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge, as do other management agencies on state and federal lands,” they wrote.
A management plan was mandated in the 1970s, but none was ever formally put into place. An interim plan proved unsatisfactory to environmental groups, who filed suit. The consent decree settled the lawsuit in 2008.
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Mico says:
Perhaps if the threatening signs were removed and as much energy was spent on growing the visitor base for historic and cultural attractions and on guide services there would not be such decline. If you spend all your time and money promoting why it is too terrible to come here you cannot complain when they don’t.
kemp's ridley says:
We need more oil to put in our wasteful SUVs so we can sacrifice entire ecosystems for the pleasure and privilege of beach driving. The gulf disaster is totally worth it; we love eating fish full of cancerous toxin’s, “burn baby burn” “spill baby spill”, we are American and it’s our right to consume ourselves into oblivion.
Bill says:
I believe this issue is not about birds or turtles, but rather the simple visitation use increase within the park.
Over the past 15-20 years, the explosion in SUV popularity/sales has opened the door for nearly every Outer Banks visitor to have the capability to drive on the sand. It’s a policing issue rather than an environmental issue. The NPS simply does not have the manpower to police the park during the busy tourist season.
Interestingly, the ORV issue first arose in 2007 when a deadly driving accident occurred where some college kids rolled a jeep at Oregon Inlet. Judge Boyle (I believe this is the central judicial figure?) in the case made a statement specifically threatening to close all ORV driving in the park, and with that statement opened the door for the “chance” that ORV access could end.
This set up two camps which favor closure.
1) The environment camp for wildlife and natural resource protection (currently the camp which is popularized as the “reason for the closures”).
2) The police enforcement camp to mitigate manpower shortfalls during the busy tourist season (not really talked about or outlined in the policy doc).
All this driven by the explosion of the visiting public’s SUV ownership.
All in all, regardless of the policy, the core issue is SUV ownership and the vast expansion of tourist visitation to the islands. As in other areas of the US East Coast, which encompasses the largest population center in the country, Department of Interior (DOI) managed land has to be restricted if only to address use. In the western part of the country, there remain vast stretches of free-use Bureau of Land Mgmt (BLM) federal land where you could do basically anything you want with your ORV. Though, here in the eastern part of the country, any areas where that was once viable is now restricted. Case in point, the NPS sand around Cape Hatteras.
All in all, beyond the birds, its an issue of public capability to “access” the beach and the visitation numbers, which have increased dramatically. Cape Hatteras has become much more accessible though interstate highway improvements leading to this area, vast expansion in lodging capability, and increased commercial services, which have blossomed on the islands over the past decade.
I welcome the evolution on the islands as a full-time local resident, but it does come at a cost, and unfortunately its a simple case of availability and “ease of access” to these islands which warrants the new restrictions.
kemp' ridley says:
We need more oil for 4 wheeling and filling our gas hog SUV’s so we can drive on the beaches. The gulf disaster is totally worth it. Turtles can swim in it, pelicans and birds can feed in it and we have a right to drive all over ecosystems because our pleasure is paramount to the rest of the earth’s creatures. We are selfish and inconsiderate of things that are important and need to be taken care of. Oil is dirty and not worth a total sacrifice of ecosystems!
chad speedy says:
All of ya’ll saying its about gas guzzling SUV’s must not realize you can’t even walk in these restiricted areas. It really has nothing to do with ORV’s like they would like you to believe. I am an eniviromentalist and what these “environmentalist” are doing to our way of life is sad. Imagine someone from out of town, who doesn’t live our even come to your town for one week out of the year starts telling you where you can and can’t recreate.
We understand that we live in a fragile environment and understand that we need to take care of it or it will take care of us.
Custer says:
If you look at the successful resource protection methodology used on other NC barrier islands you see what an environmental land grab this is. As to Kempsridley, how many offshore wells are there? How many horrible failures have there been..1??? Get real, your . . . thinking is what is causing the us-versus-them in this discussion.
Randal says:
Bill,
You have your facts wrong about the driving accident. You are confusing 2 different incidents. There was a driving violation at Oregon Inlet and a deadly rollover on Ocracoke Island. The diver of the fatal accident on Ocracoke was a visitor and the victim was a female German exchange student.