OBX and Hatteras Access Issues

This thread will be used to inform and discuss OBX issues. One problem looming right now is the Audobon Society banding together with other groups to try to restrict, or close access. Below is a public meeting scheduled for April 3, 2008. Those who can make it are urged to go and register their opinions.

Remember: Access, once lost, is rarely regained!

(Save our Seashore)
Southern Environmental Law Center, representing Defenders of Wildlife and the
National Audubon Society recently filed for a preliminary injunction in U. S. District Court requesting that beach driving be banned at the most popular recreational areas of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

If the requested injunction is issued the following areas would be

closed to all recreation

all of Oregon Inlet,

all of Cape Point,
all of South Beach,
all of Hatteras Inlet,
all of North Ocracoke and
all of Ocracoke Inlet.
These areas would be closed to all beach driving
all year long
until a new protected species plan is approved which would mean that these year around closures could last as long as
3 years or more.
The injunction has been filed because in the opinion of these environmental groups ORV use, even though limited in these areas under the current NPS and USF&W approved Interim Species Plan, is not protective enough “to allow birds to rest, nest and raise chicks”.

The court will be hearing this case on April 3, 2008.

Dare County, Hyde County and CHAPA will continue to do everything in

their power to defend beach access at the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

This information is provided as a public service by:

CHAPA

Cape Hatteras Access Preservation Alliance

(OBPA, NCBBA, CHAC, UMS, CLMS),
United Four Wheel Drive Associations, Recreational Fishing Alliance and American Sportfishing Association
mike.metzgar@ncbba.org

Some links for you folks. Please get involved!

Beach driving info --
http://www.ncbba.org/beachdriving.html

Beach Access info --
http://www.ncbba.org/beachaccess.html

Guys, there are some serious things going on in Hatteras. Copied this from another site, hope is copacetic with the boss here.

Please take some timn to look over this. sign the petition if u can, and write letters if you feel you can spare the time.

Anyone who goes down there knows how wrong this is, and it's only the beginning. Please try to show support, thank you very much.


Hello everyone I wanted to take a moment and please ask for your support in asking everyone to help save the beaches at Cape Hatteras National Recreational Park.

In April of this year the beaches were closed to fishing, swimming, surfing, shell collecting and family time on the beach because of special interest groups.

The special interest groups took the management out of the National Park Service hands to manage it under a "consent decree"

This has caused massive devistation to the economy causing loss of jobs, forclosure's on homes and up to a 41% drop in local business on the island.

Hatteras island has no manufacturers, no large scale retail chains so the island depends on local business owners and the tourism in which to live.

Please take a moment to check out www.islandfreepress.org then take 2 minutes to sign the petition below. Your help is urgent in this matter. Thank you

Regards,
B. Trotter


http://www.gopetition.com/online/18790.html

lawsuit filed.:burn:


December 12, 2008

Beach access group and Dare and Hyde counties
plan to sue over piping plover habitat designation

By IRENE NOLAN

http://www.islandfreepress.org/2008A...gPloverPic.jpg
Cape Hatteras Access Preservation Alliance (CHAPA) and Dare and Hyde counties have notified the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that they intend to file yet another lawsuit over the issue of the designation of critical habitat for the piping plover.

In their Dec. 2 notice of their intent to sue, the parties claim that the designation violates the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and other federal environmental laws.

“The FWS’s actions have caused, presently are causing, and will foreseeably continue to cause, substantial harm and adverse impacts to CHAPA’s member, the Counties, and the thousands of people who rely on the Cape Hatteras National Seashore for their livelihood and recreation,” said the notice, which was filed by Lawrence R. Liebesman, an attorney for the Washington-based law firm of Holland & Knight.

This is the second time that CHAPA and the counties have challenged the FWS attempt to designate critical habitat for the piping plover.

The piping plover, a small shorebird, nests and spends winters on the seashore beaches. In 1985, the bird’s Great Lakes population was listed as endangered, and the Atlantic Coast and Great Lakes populations were listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The USFWS also considers piping plovers threatened in their wintering habitat. All three populations spend part of the winter on the Atlantic Coast, from North Carolina south.

The Fish and Wildlife Service did not designate critical habitat — areas essential for the conservation of the species -- when the piping plover was listed under the ESA but was forced in making the designation after the agency was sued by environmental groups in the 1990s. In settling the lawsuits, FWS designated critical habitat for the shorebird – and also declared critical habitat for the wintering populations.

In 2001, USFWS published its final rule for designating critical habitat for wintering birds in the Federal Register. It included 3,600 acres in the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

In 2003, CHAPA and Dare and Hyde counties sued the Fish and Wildlife Service over the designation of wintering habitat, and in 2004, a federal judge ordered the agency to redo the plan.

The court found and directed the following:

1. The court directed that FWS show that primary constituent elements -- the physical and biological features essential to piping plover conservation -- exist on areas that are designated. It ordered FWS to clarify whether that these physical and biological features are essential for the recover of the piping plover and may require special management or protection.

2. The court found that the FWS designation of critical habitat must include compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act. The court found that the Environmental Impact Analysis did not comply with the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act, was incomplete, and possibly contained erroneous information.

3. The court found that the FWS's economic analysis was arbitrary and capricious, in that it considered the impact of off-road vehicles and other human use of beaches, but did not address information in the record about the possibility of closures of the beaches to such use or how off-road vehicle use might be affected by the designation.

4. The court also found that the FWS omitted from the economic analysis the full costs associated with the designation and ordered the FWS to reconsider them.

On May 15, the Fish and Wildlife Service published its "Revised Designation of Critical Habitat for Winter Population of the Piping Plover in North Carolina" in the Federal Register.

After a public comment period, the agency published its final rule on designation of critical habitat for wintering piping plovers in the Federal Register on Oct. 21.

Attorney Libesman writes in the notice of intent to sue that the issues are basically the same ones as in the 2003 lawsuit, which was remanded back to the Fish and Wildlife Service.

“This designation suffers from many of the same defects as the first designation that was struck down,” Libesman wrote.

They include:

• The FWS should have excluded the Seashore and Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge from critical habitat designation because the benefits of exclusion outweighed the benefits of designation.

• The FWS should have excluded the Seashore and Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge from critical habitat designation because the Interim Plan meets the FWS's exclusion requirements.

• The environmental assessment makes clear that the costs of designating critical habitat at the Seashore and Pea Island outweigh the benefits.

• The economic analysis is still deficient. It arbitrarily relies on the discredited Vogelsong study and fails to adequately discuss "the effects of the designation on everyone who might be affected" as directed by Judge Lamberth.

• The FWS fails to satisfy Judge Lamberth's direction that FWS must adequately address how each identified primary constituent element would need management or protection

• The FWS has still failed to comply with NEPA. The FWS's Environmental Assessment contains virtually no science and does not address the extensive scientific data and analysis that CHAPA and the Counties submitted through their environmental consultant

The law requires that 60 days notice is given before a lawsuit can be filed.

I have been researching the Hatteras Access issue as part of research on Beach Access and into Rep Frank Pallone....
It's sobering to me, to read some of the threads and obstacles these folks have faced because of environmental lawsuits.....

The latest that was relayed to me....
1. You now need to pay a special fee to go down there, above and beyond the access fee, for some sort of environmental/plover restoration.
2. All those interested in enjoying the park for a day or weekend, that buy the access permits, have to sit through a plover presentation/film.
3. The surrounding towns down there have suffered greatly from lack of revenue as fishermen and outdoors lovers have been prevented from enjoying that area for long stretches of time......

Although already mentioned above, just wanted to put a reference up for the OBPA in case anyone wants to learn more.
http://www.obpa.org/

Another group is CHAPA - Cape Hatteras Access Preservation Association, which had to file a lawsuit against the NPS to get this access issue moved forward towards being resolved.

Attachment 18222











**Something for future thought.....
FEIS - Federal Environmental Impact Statement ...this may come in handy someday for the fight for NJ Beach access...
Another potential valuable piece of info re strategy and gov't ignoring FEIS.
http://www.capehatterasanglersclub.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=132&Item id=2