You are here

ORV Group Files Lawsuit Over Cape Hatteras National Seashore ORV Management Plan

Share

 

In a move not totally unexpected, the National Park Service has been sued over its plan for managing off-road vehicles at Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Washington, D.C., by the Cape Hatteras Access Preservation Alliance, an arm of the Outer Banks Preservation Association, claims the seashore staff failed to fully consider proposals offered by the alliance that would meet their desires for ORV access to Cape Hatteras beaches while also protecting threatened and endangered species.

“The Park Service’s new ORV management plan and rules, if implemented, will have a devastating effect on our unique, local shore-oriented culture and economy,” said John Couch, the association's president.  “The OBPA and CHAPA have fought to keep the Cape Hatteras National Seashore Recreational Area beaches free and open to residents and visitors since 1977. 

"OBPA and CHAPA continuously have maintained that reasonable ORV access and bird and turtle species protection are not mutually exclusive," he said in a prepared statement. "Unfortunately, the Park Service overlooked reasonable recommendations and information that OBPA and CHAPA put forth during the planning process that would have resulted in an ORV management plan and rules that both protect wildlife resources and ensure reasonable ORV access to and over the area’s beaches.”

One of the recommendations Mr. Couch's group has made was to have the seashore use a bulldozer to create new habitat for plovers away from Cape Point, a highly popular and productive fishing area near Buxton.

"What we're saying is why can't we have a partnership with the environmentalists? We can improve this habitat," he said last summer. "They (the Park Service) have yet to do anything to improve the habitat for the birds.”

But the suggestion didn't seem prudent to the Park Service.

"Should we go out and bulldoze ponds in different locations? You've got to recognize that it'd be adverse modification of piping plover habitat," Cape Hatteras Superintendent Mike Murray said last summer. "If the habitat is naturally occurring there, you can't go mess it up in order to ensure access and then try to spend millions to create habitat further west. It is where it is."

The management plan, rules for which are scheduled to take effect next Wednesday, February 15, was developed after years of acrimonious debate over how to protect species such as the piping plover and five species of sea turtles from disturbance during their nesting seasons on Cape Hatteras. The plan was designed to meet both the Park Service's legal requirement to adopt an ORV management plan at the seashore, and its mandates under the Endangered Species Act to protect endangered and threatened species.

It was another lawsuit, brought in 2007 by the Southern Environmental Law Center on behalf of the National Audubon Society and Defenders of Wildlife over the lack of an ORV management plan, that forced the Park Service's hand to develop one.

Since 2008 the seashore has governed ORV use on the beaches under an interim plan approved as part of a consent decree reached in the wake of the lawsuit. Part of the interim plan allowed the Park Service to establish ORV buffers 1,000 meters wide to protect piping plover chicks; the buffer for pedestrians is 300 meters. Both buffers were retained in the management plan the Park Service wants to implement.

While Cape Hatteras Superintendent Murray tried to work with both sides in the matter to come up with a satisfactory ORV plan, one that would provide access and protect wildlife, that didn't go very well. For 18 months committees worked to find common ground, but couldn't.

“The committee worked really hard,” the superintendent said back in May 2010. “We had 11 formal meetings, which was 20 total meeting days. Every couple months there would be a two-day meeting. But we had seven subcommittees that worked on different parts of the plan. They had conference calls and subcommittee meetings and on and on and on.

“They made progress on stuff,” he went on, “but it kind of boiled down to, after all this effort, the parties on the committee were able to agree to the easy things, like speed limits, or vehicle requirements. They couldn’t agree to the hard things, like how are we going to manage ORV use in the real sensitive bird nesting areas?

“So, towards the end of the process, we created a special subcommittee, called the integration group - sort of three from each side and three sort of neutral parties - to try to work out the final recommendation for the committee to consider. And they couldn’t do it. They couldn’t agree to anything.”

In their lawsuit, the ORV interests contend that they have "advocated the protection and preservation of seashore beaches within a framework of responsible and meaningful access to the ocean beaches and sound for all users, including pedestrians and properly licensed drivers and their vehicles."

But the plan scheduled to take effect next week, they claim in their lawsuit, was “foreordained from the time that NPS began its planning process."  More so, the Park Service’s planning and environmental review process under the National Environmental Policy Act was plagued by a series of failures, the filing maintains.

Those failures, the group's press release states, include: a failure to give meaningful consideration to views, data, or information that were contrary to NPS’s desire to impose more severe restrictions on ORV access and use; a failure to look at reasonable alternatives, including smaller and more flexible buffer and closure areas; and a failure to properly assess impacts on the local economy. 

The complaint asks the court to determine that NPS acted improperly and to prevent NPS from implementing its final ORV management plan and rules.

Comments

"there is no reference to a promised privilege of driving on the
beach"
There is also no reference to the department of the interior running the show, lawyers suing the park, satalite images or even computers being used on the beach, but that does not say because it is not there that it was excluded either...
Heck they do not mention bikinis either, but they are allowed.
"The reason we need lines in the sand is because not all of us
want to recreate in the middle of a parking lot on the beach. The beach
is too small and there are too many vehicles (and visitors) to do it any other
fair way."
I again will say I have not seen a person who walked to the point (including officials researching lawsuits to stop beach driving) who was not forced to walk there. This is 13 years of studies from a person who was there.

Mike Murray did the same closings in the northeast before he was hired to do the same here. There was not intent to allow ORV's to continue and he purposely allowed the Interim plan to make it easier to get the stronger anti ORV plan in the works. He even gave the real Special interest eco groups their new fuzzy poster child the plover. Before he cam along the environmentalist were attempting to protect the gohst crabs from compacted sand from the ORV's. Who knew that their old poster child would like to eat the new one. KARMA?


Why? I'm not sure why people want access to "all places" but I sure know why we do at Hatteras.   This Recreational Seashore was set aside and dedicated “for the benefit and enjoyment of the American People”.   "People",  and I mean thousands of people for 50
years have enjoyed this recreation area- by DRIVING and FISHING Cape Point  by ORV.
This is suppose to be a democracy, right?  The MAJORITY of people using Cape Hatteras
prefer to access by ORV, period.  It's not a glacier, it's not a battlefield.... but it is now
a battleground.    


Samsdad: 

When lawyers and such read something that is clearly spelled out in the enabling legislation it takes on special significance. If the E L stated that ORV access “will be” allowed you can bet the ORV access side would take it of the upmost importance. It didn’t mention it, which is the reason the Park had to come up with a plan to manage ORV use.

I didn’t say I was advocating for Cape Point (I’m not) to be a vehicle free zone. There could have been other means of access or management that was different than all or nothing. It was never considered.

I would disagree about Mike Murray having a secret plan to buddy up with the ORVers to come up with an IPSMP that would upset the environmental organizations enough to make them sue the Park. The last thing Mike wanted was a lawsuit. He just didn’t read the tea leaves all that well.


"If the E L stated that ORV access “will be” allowed you can bet the ORV
access side would take it of the upmost importance. It didn’t mention
it, which is the reason the Park had to come up with a plan to manage
ORV use."
How Obtuse can you be... Please consider the when the E.L. was formed on June 29, 1940 (Search 4x4 in 1940 and you will find 99% military vehicles) ORV's were the only form of access to the recreation that was promised (the name even states so "Cape Hatteras National Seashore Recreational Area") would always be there. ORV uses was not mentioned because these people understood that is how you get there. 99% of ORV users do so to get there. "There" is the place where the individual wants to see this island and by limiting the "There" component "There" becomes "Elsewhere".


It is interesting to read the comments here and barely a mention of the human beings who rely on the tourism which includes access to the beaches. These humans have lived there for generations. There is little industry besides fishing and tourism there. Do you not feel any sense of compassion to your fellow man?
The closures have affected the tourism. That is a black and white fact. Businesses are closing, people are leaving or contributing to the increasing levels of unemployment. If anyone here has not been to these beaches and witnessed the care and respect shown especially by the fishing community, I would suggest taking a look before you cast your vote.
Remember this is a National Recreation Area. Not a National Park
Please sign this petition to support getting these closures removed.
http://www.change.org/petitions/the-us-senate-remove-the-orv-rule-and-pr...


 

CHNS is not a recreation area. There are 18 national recreation parks and 10 national seashore administered by the NPS. CHNS is one of the 10 national seashores. The NPS dropped, "and Recreation Area" when referring to this park years ago. ORV access advocates use the amended antiquated name Cape Hatteras National Seashore and Recreation Area erroneously believing that by referring to the National Seashore as a recreation area it grants them ORV access privileges.

The economic indicators for Dare County and Hatteras Island don’t suggest economic collapse.  ORV advocates pontificate that the Park’s ORV plan has or will cause economic collapse of Hatteras Island and hype local economic collapse as a way to further their special interest, ORV access.

THE NPS received a large number of written comments indicating that ORV use in the National Seashore (in addition to resource concerns) constitutes recreational conflicts for visitors who want to recreate on beaches that are not ORV routes.

The Park’s recent ORV plan is an attempt to address those concerns by establishing vehicle free zones in the selected ORV plan.  ORV organizations continue to be highly critical of and lobby against vehicle free zones in the park.
 


To SS1
Again out of respect, we shall not argue. I will simply state that I find the content of your recent comments somewhat over the top. Enough so that I would not know where to begin to address them. You are entitled to point out your interpretation of what has been implied, promised and spelled out in the enabling legislation as well as the multitude of inpact studies. But, forgive some of us when we stop listening as you proceed to explain to us what it means. This is exactly why the issues have again been sent to the courts and now to congress. It will hopefully now be argued in those venues. Win or lose, we will live with it. No need for us to argue anymore. I will defer to CHAPA's statements in proposed litigation and Representative Walter Jones statements in proposed legislation. That pretty much sums up anything thing I would say at this point
Ron (obxguys). 


[size= 14px; line-height: 18px]"The NPS dropped, "and Recreation Area" when referring to this park years ago. ORV access advocates use the amended antiquated name Cape Hatteras National Seashore and Recreation Area erroneously believing that by referring to the National Seashore as a recreation area it grants them ORV access privileges."[/size]
[size= 14px; line-height: 18px]Do not assume as I simply believe the Recreation in the name was to differentiate from the wildlife refuge at pea island and was for ACCESS and  not just ORV Access![/size]
[size= 14px; line-height: 18px]"[/size][size= 14px; line-height: 18px]The economic indicators for Dare County and Hatteras Island don’t suggest economic collapse." [/size]
[size= 14px; line-height: 18px]Dare county includes areas before the bonner bridge that are unaffected by these closures. Area businesses after bonner bridge are those that are affected.[/size]
[size= 14px; line-height: 18px]"[/size][size= 14px; line-height: 18px]THE NPS received a large number of written comments indicating that ORV use in the National Seashore (in addition to resource concerns) constitutes recreational conflicts for visitors who want to recreate on beaches that are not ORV routes."[/size]
[size= 14px; line-height: 18px]Where are these people that walked to the point before being forced to? I have never seen them so they must not exist like the over protected plovers I cannot see in the aircraft carrier size protected zones.[/size]
[size= 14px; line-height: 18px]"[/size][size= 14px; line-height: 18px]The Park’s recent ORV plan is an attempt to address those concerns by establishing vehicle free zones in the selected ORV plan. ORV organizations continue to be highly critical of and lobby against vehicle free zones in the park."[/size]
VFA's are another example of my above mentioned comments that NON orv users do not use the same areas... and even if they wanted to they cannot because of extremely large bird closures...


Add comment

CAPTCHA

This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.

Image CAPTCHA
Enter the characters shown in the image.

The Essential RVing Guide

The Essential RVing Guide to the National Parks

The National Parks RVing Guide, aka the Essential RVing Guide To The National Parks, is the definitive guide for RVers seeking information on campgrounds in the National Park System where they can park their rigs. It's available for free for both iPhones and Android models.

This app is packed with RVing specific details on more than 250 campgrounds in more than 70 parks.

You'll also find stories about RVing in the parks, some tips if you've just recently turned into an RVer, and some planning suggestions. A bonus that wasn't in the previous eBook or PDF versions of this guide are feeds of Traveler content: you'll find our latest stories as well as our most recent podcasts just a click away.

So whether you have an iPhone or an Android, download this app and start exploring the campgrounds in the National Park System where you can park your rig.