Barclay Trimble, the new superintendent of the National Park Service?s Outer Banks Group, which includes Cape Hatteras National Seashore, had his first formal meeting with local reporters yesterday.
Trimble was named in August to replace Mike Murray, who retired last July 31, after 6 ? years as superintendent.
Trimble came to the Outer Banks after five years as deputy superintendent of the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona.
He arrived here the week before Hurricane Sandy brushed the Outer Banks on Oct. 27.
He and his wife and two young children rode out the storm in their new but empty home on the Outer Banks.
Trimble, who is a youthful looking 46 years old, said his first impression of the Outer Banks and the Park Service staff here was ?phenomenal,? adding that the staff?s performance during the hurricane was ?terrific.?
He said he was comfortable here since he grew up in a small town in Texas outside Corpus Christi near the Padre Island National Seashore.
The new superintendent also arrived with a long list of seashore projects and issues to address.
One of the items at the top of that list is the infrastructure improvements that are called for in the park?s new off-road vehicle plan and final rule that became effective last Feb. 15.
The environmental assessment (EA) for the improvements, he said, is ongoing with wetlands and vegetation surveys completed and an archaeological survey, which was delayed by Hurricane Sandy, still underway.
He expects the EA to be released to the public next month. Soon after the release, there will be public meetings to help the park prioritize the improvements and there will also be a 30-day public comment period.
Among the improvements called for in the ORV plan are new ramps, parking areas, and interdunal roads.
?Not all will be done in year one,? Trimble said, but instead will be phased in with the public?s input on which are most important.
The superintendent expects the plan to be finalized by June and wants to start right away on the highest priority items on the list.
Trimble said that from last Feb. 15 until the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, the seashore sold 7,456 annual permits for $120 and 19,698 weekly permits at $50 for a total of just over $1.8 million.
Since the new fiscal year began on Oct. 1, the park has sold 1,293 annual permits and 4,112 weekly permits.
Permits are good for a calendar year, and permits for 2013 went on sale in early December.
Trimble and chief enforcement ranger Paul Stevens said that the fees helped pay for additional protection staff, including four law enforcement rangers ? one on Ocracoke, two on Hatteras, and one on Bodie Island.
Permit fees also paid for staffing for the permitting offices on Bodie Island, Hatteras, and Ocracoke and for equipment for such items as maintaining ramps and roads in the seashore.
All expenditures of the permit fees were for ORV issues, Trimble said.
He said that no changes will be made to the ORV plan for another four years ? it is to be reviewed every five years and has been effective for a year.
However, he said, public meetings will be conducted at the end of the five years and that he ?looks forward to tweaking? the rule.
In response to questions from reporters, Trimble also said:
- Renovations on the inside and outside of the Bodie Island Lighthouse are almost complete and the original first-order Fresnel lens will be reinstalled at the top of the tower between March 4 and 15.
The lens will be carried up to the top of the lighthouse piece by piece in backpacks, he said.
An official relighting ceremony is scheduled for April 18 and the lighthouse will open to the public for climbing for the first time on April 19.
Because the restoration retained 100 percent of the historic fabric of the beacon, the infrastructure cannot support as many climbers as Cape Hatteras Lighthouse can. Tours will be limited to 380 visitors a day, who will climb the tower in groups of 20, led by a tour guide.
- The future of the storm-damaged Frisco Pier is still not settled. However, Trimble said he has met three times since he arrived with the pier?s owners, Tod and Angie Gaskill of Top Dollar Construction Co., and that he hopes the matter will be resolved in a ?few months.?
?The owners,? Trimble said, ?are fully aware of our safety concerns.?
He added that resolution of the issue will be either repairing the pier or removing what remains. The pier has been closed for the past three years and remains closed.
- The National Park Service has signed a memorandum of intent with the Hatteras Island Ocean Center, Inc., to allow that planned fishing pier to cross park land.
The Ocean Center plans a pier house with shops and restaurants on private land with a fishing pier, a public beach with a bathhouse, ecology center and other amenities.
It will be located on property purchased by the Ocean Center board at the site of the old Gen. Mitchell Motel that was destroyed by Hurricane Isabel in 2003. There will also be a component on the soundside of Highway 12 in Hatteras village.
- The Park Service does not intend to move the Vehicle Free Area north of Ramp 43 after it relocated the ramp last year.
Some access advocates have complained that the when Ramp 43 was moved 250 feet to the north that the VFA should have also moved 250 feet to the north. The ORV rule says that the VFA begins four-tenths of a mile north of Ramp 43.
Stevens and Trimble say that the ramp was moved for safety reasons, which is allowed under the plan, and that the park is on ?firm ground? claiming that the VFA should remain four-tenths of a mile north of the original Ramp 43 location.
A member of the ORV community, they say, called the safety issue with the ramp to the seashore?s attention. It was a one-lane ramp up and over a dune that prohibited drivers from seeing someone approaching from the other direction.
The ramp was moved north to an area without dunes and a clear shot onto the beach.
The ORV driving area and the VFA, they say, remain the same as before.
It was a good solution for ORV drivers and for the resources, they say.
- The National Park Service considers that it retains jurisdiction over the foreshore ? the wet beach between the mean high and mean low tide lines ? in northern Rodanthe, even though the land has eroded to the west and the original park boundaries are now out in the ocean.
Presumably, this extends to other areas of the seashore where there are erosion issues.
Trimble bases his view on a 2009 opinion from the Park Service?s solicitors? office.
The opinion has been seldom, if ever, mentioned in the past and came to light only after questions arose over whose responsibility it is to clean up the debris on the beach when structures fall into the ocean.
Park Service staff members have described the opinion to reporters, but Trimble declined to release the document to the media. The National Park Service, he says, considers the opinion is not public because of attorney-client privilege.
And, finally, Trimble declined to release to reporters the new direct telephone numbers for members of the Outer Banks Group staff.
The numbers were changed earlier this year when a new phone system was installed.
Trimble says that after reporters asked for a new phone list, local park officials sought an opinion from the ethics staff in the Southeast Regional Office in Atlanta. Those officials said that the new phone numbers are ?proprietary? information.
The public and the media can contact local park staff members by calling the new main number at 252-475-9000 or through public affairs specialist Cyndy Holda at 252-475-9034. Individual staff members can give their direct numbers to the media and the public if they wish.
