The National Park Service said today that the final off-road vehicle regulation and management will still be effective on Wednesday, Feb. 15, despite a lawsuit that beach access groups filed yesterday to stop it.
The Cape Hatteras Access Preservation Alliance (CHAPA) filed the complaint yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in an effort to stop the Park Service from implementing its plan and rule.
CHAPA is a project of the Outer Banks Preservation Association, a group dedicated to preserving and protecting the historical use of the beach on the Outer Banks and specifically the Cape Hatteras National Seashore Recreational Area (CHNSRA).
CHAPA?s complaint names Ken Salazar, Secretary of the Department of the Interior, Jonathan Jarvis, director of the National Park Service, and Mike Murray, superintendent of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.
Cape Hatteras Seashore?s public information officer, Cyndy Holda, said today that the Park Service does not comment on litigation, but that permits to drive on the beach will go on sale as planned at 8 a.m. Wednesday at three park locations.
E-mails to the public information officers for the National Park Service in Washington and the Department of the Interior for comment were not answered.
The environmental groups that sued the Park Service in October, 2007 over its lack of an ORV plan, which has been required by law since 1972, and its inadequate protections for nesting birds and turtles reacted to the lawsuit today in a media release.
That lawsuit led to a court-approved consent decree, under which the seashore has operated for the past four years, and eventually to the final regulation on ORVs on the seashore, issued last month.
?We?re disappointed that some beach driving enthusiasts quickly filed suit against beach driving rules that would protect pedestrians and nesting and young sea turtles and birds within Cape Hatteras National Seashore,? said the release from Defenders of Wildlife, the National Audubon Society, and the Southern Environmental Law Center.
?By suing to prevent the National Park Service from implementing the rule, CHAPA is not honoring the Consent Decree it previously agreed to before the court,? the release continued. ?In addition, the timing of this lawsuit does not give adequate time to assess the effectiveness of the recently released National Park Service rules, which allow ORV use on the majority of the seashore and increase access for all users.?
CHAPA notes in its complaint that the 2007 lawsuit by the environmentalists did not give adequate time to assess the effectiveness of the park?s Interim Protected Management Plan, which was publicly vetted and put in place just months before the suit, or the negotiated rulemaking committee, which began meeting formally just months after the lawsuit was filed.
The Reg-Neg Committee, which included members from all stakeholders, met for more than a year and could not reach consensus. Access groups and some others blame the failure on the lawsuit, which, they say, was filed prematurely and cast a shadow over the negotiations.
The CHAPA lawsuit also challenges the environmental groups? claim that the final regulation allows ORV use on the majority of the seashore and increases access for all users.
?We?re confident that the court will uphold the final rule,? the environmentalists said in their statement. ?We?re committed to defending these protections for both pedestrians and wildlife that allow responsible beach driving and correlate with growing tourism for Dare County and Cape Hatteras.?
The groups did not directly answer whether that commitment extends to intervening on the side of the federal government in the current litigation. That, of course, would be an irony, since they are the folks who sued the government to get the ball rolling.
While members of OBPA and the North Carolina Beach Buggy Association were in Washington this week, they also met with members of the area?s Congressional delegation ? U.S. Rep. Walter B. Jones, R-N.C., and Senators Kay Hagan, D-N.C., and Richard Burr, R-N.C.
?The Cape Hatteras National Seashore is an important part of our state?s coastal economy, and I continue to have concerns about the economic effects the ORV rule will have on the Hatteras region,? Hagan said in a statement issued by her office yesterday. ?I have pushed for federal agencies to take the concerns of members of the Hatteras community into account by balancing responsible access with environmental protections. Ultimately, we need a solution that will ensure Hatteras beaches remain as accessible as possible to North Carolinians and the tens of thousands of tourists that visit our coast.?
?The Congressman is very much in favor of the lawsuit,? a spokesman for Jones said today.
David Scarborough, treasurer of OBPA, said today that the response to the lawsuit by islanders and regular visitors who oppose the plan has been ?tremendous.?
Traffic on the OBPA website has been heavy since news of the lawsuit was released late yesterday afternoon. He said that folks are renewing memberships for $30, buying lifetime memberships for $250, and making donations.
The most popular donation, Scarborough said, has been for $120, the annual cost of an ORV permit.
CHAPA is funded through voluntary public donations.
The comments to The Island Free Press have also been hot and heavy, with many readers wondering why CHAPA did not seek an immediate, temporary injunction to stop the plan.
The group explained today that it ?believes the errors in the NPS process identified in the complaint are of such magnitude that modifications to correct the current rule during a temporary injunction are not feasible.? Instead it sought a permanent injunction from the court.
According to attorneys in the Washington D.C. law firm representing CHAPA, Van Ness Feldman, PC, the defendants have 60 days to respond to the complaint. At that point, the attorneys said, the court and counsel for the plaintiff and defendants will establish the process to resolve the complaint.
Although CHAPA did not ask directly to be awarded attorneys? fees if it wins the lawsuit, the complaint does ask that the court grant it ?such other and future relief as the court deems just, proper, and equitable.?
MORE DETAILS ON THE RULE AND PERMITS
Questions and comments that readers have sent to The Island Free Press indicate that they believe there will be a toll booth at every ramp or a ranger checking in vehicles.
Not so, says Paul Stevens, the seashore?s chief enforcement ranger.
You will find that entering the beach will be pretty much as it was before. And, as before, rangers will keep an eye on crowding to be sure that the carrying capacity specified by the rule ? about 260 vehicles per mile ? isn?t exceeded and that conditions are the beach remain ?safe.?
Stevens says the Park Service has stopped vehicles from entering the beach until another left only three times. They were all at Bodie Island, all on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, and all lasted an hour or two in the middle of the day. That happened he said in 2008-2010 but not last year.
In all of those cases, Stevens said, the reason for the closure was more for safety than carrying capacity. The beach is narrow in that area, he said, and for safety, rangers must maintain two-way traffic behind the parked vehicles in case of emergency.
For the past several years, the Park Service has counted vehicles on the beach on holiday weekends, Stevens said, and the counts have been within what will be allowed under the new rules.
?We know this is a big change,? he said, and park rangers will be working with the public, especially in the first month and the first year.
?The superintendent doesn?t want us to come across as a heavy law enforcement situation,? Ocracoke district ranger Kenny Ballance said when he spoke to the island?s Civic and Business Association earlier this week. ?If someone doesn?t have a permit, we will ask them to leave the beach and get it.?
IFP readers have also inquired about special rates for permits for elderly or handicapped ORV drivers. All will have to pay the same for the permit.
The permit will go with the vehicle, but some have asked what will happen if your vehicle is wrecked or you buy a new one. In that case, you can scrape off the permit and bring it to the Park Service for a new one, park officials say.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
To read the complaint in the CHAPA lawsuit again NPS and others go to http://www.obpa-nc.org/Rule/CHAPA-complaint.pdf
Making donations: The easiest way to make a donation to OBPA to help with the lawsuit is to click on the OBPA ad at the top of the Beach Access or Shooting the Breeze page. Then click on membership/donations and make your donation through PayPal. You can also go directly to the website at www.obpa.org or straight to the donation page: http://obpa-nc.org/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=118&Itemid=61
If you prefer, you can send a check to OBPA, P.O. Box 1355, Buxton, NC 27920. Make the check out to OBPA.
Getting a Permit: Permits will be sold at three Park Service offices located at Coquina Beach, the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse Visitor Center (Buxton), and the Ocracoke Visitor Center. The offices are temporarily located in trailers at those sites.
The offices will be open year-round, seven days a week, except Christmas Day, from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., with expanded hours on weekends and holidays during the summer season.
Those applying for permits will watch a seven-minute educational video on operating an off-road vehicle on the beach and the seashore?s ORV regulations. And they must bring a driver?s license and vehicle registration with them.
