Earlier this week, Jason Rylander, attorney for Defenders of Wildlife, sent an urgent message to the group?s members.
He urged them to comment on the North Carolina Department of Transportation?s plan to replace a temporary bridge at Pea Island Inlet with a longer, higher permanent bridge.
The permanent bridge is part of DOT?s plan to replace the aged Bonner Bridge and to bridge hot spots on Highway 12, especially in the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge. Rylander?s group and the National Wildlife Refuge Association, represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center, have filed a lawsuit in federal court to stop the project.
Rylander?s e-mail was full of the same propaganda and half-truths that have been a signature part of the effort by these outside, special interest groups to not only stop the bridge replacement project but also to severely limit off-road vehicle use in the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.
Rylander writes to the members that the DOT plan would turn the refuge into a ?permanent construction zone, ultimately ruining the beauty of the refuge, destroying crucial wildlife habitat and failing to provide a safe, reliable, long-term solution to the project.?
He says the project will have a devastating effect on the refuge and its wildlife.
Now, Defenders and its allies would like you to believe that Pea Island is some pristine, natural, isolated refuge and should be untouched by man.
That?s not true, but the problem is that the Defenders e-mail pleas are sent to members all over the country, most of whom, it is safe to say, have never seen Pea Island refuge or the Outer Banks.
Back in 2011, the Southern Environmental Law Center issued its list of the Top Ten Most Endangered Places for 2011. Number 4 on the list was the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge on the northern end of Hatteras Island.
?SELC is using the power of the law to defend hundreds of imperiled areas, to ensure clean air and water, and to help chart a new energy future for the Southeast,? SELC then said in a media release. ?We have targeted 10 special places that are facing immediate, potentially irreversible threats today.?
?The challenge will be to ensure safe, reliable access to the new bridge and to prevent ongoing roadwork from destroying habitat for rare shorebirds, nesting sea turtles, and hundreds of other species.?
I wrote a blog about the ?endangered? Pea Island refuge then and much of it bears repeating now.
We need to be perfectly clear about one thing. Pea Island is not the pristine, undisturbed, totally natural area that some groups would like to have you believe.
Yes, Pea Island is a beautiful stretch of barrier island that runs from Oregon Inlet about 17 miles to the northern boundary of the village of Rodanthe. It is indeed a ?birder?s paradise? that is home to migratory waterfowl, such as snow geese and tundra swans, and other species of birds, shorebirds, and sea turtles that nest on the beaches.
Most of us on Hatteras Island and I suspect that most of our visitors look forward to driving through the refuge and watching the waterfowl and other birds that are always plentiful. It has great trails and a beach that is popular with walkers, shell seekers, surfers, and fishermen.
However, Pea Island is also a manmade refuge.
The refuge was established in 1937, and from the beginning, it was an environment engineered by man.
In the 1930s, The Civilian Conservation Corps built dunes and dikes in the refuge. In the late ?50s and early ?60s, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service constructed three impoundments to enhance habitat quality. These ?ponds? with their dike system are carefully managed by Fish and Wildlife and are periodically drained. The service also conducts periodic burns in the refuge to help maintain the habitat.
Even now, refuge managers are repairing damage to the North Pond from Hurricane Irene in 2011 and restoring nesting habitat. They have already dredged sand that was washed into the pond.
None of this is a bad thing.
But let?s not get overly worked up about this ?construction zone? view and the imminent demise of Pea Island as we know it.
The stretch that is now the refuge has been a transportation corridor on Hatteras Island for a very long time. A sand road ran through the area and either that or the ocean beach was used by the traveling public, especially after Toby Tillett started his ferry across Oregon Inlet in the 1920s.
There has been a paved highway through the refuge since about the mid-1950s, and Highway 12 has been a major route for islanders and visitors since the Bonner Bridge was completed in 1963.
The claim by outside special-interest groups that the refuge could become a ?permanent construction zone? is disingenuous, since it?s been a construction zone ever since there has been a paved highway that is the only land route on and off the island.
Some sort of maintenance is regularly required, especially after storms, sometimes even seemingly minor northeasters. The road has been moved west more than once.
And it should continue to be maintained and moved as necessary. This is a public safety issue, first and foremost. But it is also an economic issue. Hatteras ? and Ocracoke ? islanders need that highway.
Most are resigned to the fact that the road is sometimes impassable and that if you are going to evacuate in a hurricane, you need to do it sooner rather than later. It?s part of life on this island.
These special interest groups don?t want to see a replacement short bridge built parallel to the current Bonner Bridge. They want a 17-mile bridge built out into the Pamlico Sound from Oregon Inlet to Rodanthe that would bypass the refuge. Or they want access to the island by high-speed ferries.
And they refuse to acknowledge that there are serious, if not insurmountable, obstacles to what they want.
There is not enough money to build the long bridge. And it would present its own challenges in storms, or even on windy day, and there are plenty of them around here. Yes, ocean overwash closes the highway at times, but high winds might close a long bridge, as happens at the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel.
Also, DOT has just completed yet another study explaining why high-speed ferries are not feasible in the Pamlico Sound. And they, also, would be incredibly costly.
In addition, I don?t know anyone who believes that any sort of road through the refuge would be maintained by USFWS if it were not a public transportation corridor to the bridge. That would cut off access, or make it much more difficult, for birders, beachcombers, fishermen, surfers, and all of the others who enjoy the recreation available in the refuge.
It is true that Highway 12 will need continued maintenance and attention in the years to come. But most believe it is possible to maintain the highway and still preserve the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge and the varied recreation it offers.
After all, the two have co-existed for some 60 years.
And, given the popularity of the refuge and the number of species that visit and nest there, the two are co-existing quite well.
About 87 percent or so of Hatteras Island is federal land and belongs to all of us. Those of us who live here and work here appreciate that fact and we welcome all of our visitors who also love the island.
We have co-existed with wildlife quite nicely for hundreds of years and realize that the wildlife bring a special experience for those who visit here.
We want to protect wildlife in a reasonable manner, but we also want to live here, as many islanders or their forefathers have even before there was a refuge or a national seashore.
It?s long past time that well-funded, outside special-interest groups that apparently have really smart lawyers stop harassing Hatteras islanders with lawsuits that threaten public safety and the economy of the island.
Audubon?s Ted Williams back in the magazine
Audubon Magazine?s combative, ORV-hating columnist Ted Williams is back in the publication?s good graces after a slap on the hand. His suspension for writing in another publication that Tylenol was poisonous to feral cats and would be a reasonable solution to the feral cat problem lasted less than a week.
Cat lovers were not amused, and the flap that ensued was the topic of last week?s blog.
On Tuesday, Audubon reinstated Williams to his position as a contributing editor.
David Yarnold, Audubon?s president and CEO, said:
?Everyone makes mistakes in their jobs. Usually, a handful of co-workers, a classroom full of kids or some other collection of colleagues sees our missteps. Not journalists. We publish our mistakes for everyone to see.
?As Ted says in his apology, he did just that.
?After doing the review we promised, which included extensive fact-checking and a look at Ted’s work for other publications, we?re satisfied that there?s no larger pattern of missteps that would warrant further disciplinary action.?
You can click here to read the entire statement.
And, apparently, cat lovers are still not amused.
