In a meeting with reporters yesterday, Oct. 7, Cape Hatteras National Seashore Superintendent Mike Murray updated the steps that the Park Service must still take to meet the terms of a consent decree that set down a time line for the park to produce an off-road vehicle management plan for the seashore.
The consent decree settled a lawsuit against the National Park Service for its lack of an ORV management plan at Cape Hatteras National Seashore. The lawsuit was filed by Defenders of Wildlife and the National Audubon Society, which were represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center. Dare and Hyde counties and the Cape Hatteras Access Preservation Alliance were allowed as parties to the lawsuit by U.S. District Court Judge Terrence Boyle.
The consent decree was signed by Boyle on April 30, 2008. It manages some areas of resource protection ? such things as buffers around bird and turtle nests and a ban on night driving during the nesting season ? until the park has a Special Regulation on ORV operation on the beaches. The decree stipulates that an ORV management plan be completed by Dec. 31, and a special regulation completed and promulgated by April 1 of next year.
Yesterday, Murray reported that work was progressing on one part of the process to get to the ORV rule. That is the Environmental Impact Statement, required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
However, he said there will be a time squeeze on publishing the proposed ORV rule and completing the special regulation by April 1.
Here is the timetable that Murray laid out yesterday:
NPS is still analyzing comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, which was issued in March and was put out for public comment for 60 days.
The Final Environmental Impact Statement, based on the analysis of public comments and other factors, is expected now in mid-November.
Murray said there is a 30-day waiting period after the DEIS is issued, though it is not an official public comment period.
After those 30 days, a Record of Decision on the Environmental Impact Statement is signed. That is expected by Dec. 31.
The Proposed ORV rule will be published sometime after that ? presumably after the first of the year. This kicks off another 60 days of public comment. And those comments must be analyzed also before a final Special Regulation is formulated. Another 30-day waiting period follows, not for public comment but to inform all the entities with a stake in it so they are familiar with it.
Some folks are confused or hazy about all the terms and why there is an Environmental Impact Statement and a proposed rule.
The ORV rule, Murray said, will reference the Environmental Impact Statement. However, he said, the focus of the rule will be the regulatory language that is directly related to ORV use. Resource management issues, such as buffers, will be addressed only in the EIS. The proposed rule will address such ORV-specific issues as night driving, speed limits, and ramps.
The regulation of pets, horses, beach fires, and kites already exists in the superintendent?s compendium of seashore rules. They will not be in the special rule.
?If the final decision is to change any of the existing restrictions on those non-ORV issues,? Murray said, ?it would be done by revising the compendium.?
However, you can do the math on the Park Service proposed timeline and see that meeting the requirements of the consent decree by April 1 will be challenging for park officials.
?I think we?re doing pretty well,? Murray said, noting that the NEPA part of the process is near completion.
However, just three months to publish the proposed ORV rule, take comments, analyze comments, and write a final special regulation seems to be a stretch, at the very least.
Again, Murray says, ?I think we are doing pretty well.?
He added that ?They tell me it can be done? referring to park staff in Washington.
Murray also noted that the length of time to compile and analyze public comment on the proposed ORV rule will depend on how many comments are submitted.
About 31,000 comments were submitted on the DEIS. However, the Park Service threw out more than 16,000 of them because they did not meet the requirements for submitting, such as by bulk mailing, faxes, or e-mails. Only comments made on the Park Planning Web site were allowed.
The Outer Banks Preservation Association found out through a Freedom of Information request made by member Jeffrey Golding that the ousted comments included 24 from Cape Hatteras Secondary School students and 16,543 that were submitted by the Wilderness Society. The Wilderness Society?s representative on the Negotiated Rulemaking Committee was Destry Jarvis, brother of National Park Service director Jon Jarvis. Just an interesting point.
No one is quite sure what happens if the April 1 deadline is missed. Murray and others presume that whether or not a delay will be allowed, especially without consequences, depends on what the parties to the lawsuit can agree on and what Judge Boyle will allow.
But we should know a good deal more when we see the FEIS in mid-November, assuming it?s on time.
Be prepared. Murray said it?s similar in length to the DEIS, which was more than 800 pages with appendices.
