I live one mile by road, from the Atlantic Ocean's high tide line in Kill Devil Hills, N.C. Lately I'm reminded more than ever of the effects of the sheer numbers of people congregating, living on the coast. Don't worry I'm not about to lament how it used to be. I do have a fairly long retrospective given my age, but I just want to talk mostly about what it's like here on the coast now.
We live in a remote coastal region of the U.S. East Coast on a barrier island, 75 miles from the nearest urban center. I've lived on this part of the coast 28 years and along this part my whole life except a few years in Hawaii, Greenville, N.C., and Washington, D.C. This place offers the most naturally dynamic environment with surf, I've ever seen. Ocean, marine geology and weather systems cavort and romp across the landscape with impunity. When people are added to the recipe controversies spring up in succession. Here's the latest.
A few months ago two environmental groups, The National Audubon Society and The Defenders of Wildlife, employing the Southern Environmental Law Center, filed suit against the National Park Service (paraphrasing here) demanding an injunction to stop off-road vehicle (ORV) access and use of beaches in the Cape Hatteras National Seashore until such time as the Park Service establishes rules limiting beach use by such vehicles. Their apparent intentions are to protect endangered species, for instance piping plovers and sea turtles which nest on the beaches in the Seashore.
(Editor's Note: For you firebrands out there, I'm not expert on the law in this area, nor trying to show off my understanding of the background political nuance on this issue, nor taking sides. If you desire what I consider keen local political perspective and insight, I refer you to three excellent local blogs: View From the Ridge, Outer Banks Republic, and Island Free Press (Ocracoke Island.)
I truly understand the ORV users'(of which I am one) desires to drive on the beaches. I'm familiar with all the arguments supporting continued use. I drive on the beach once in-a-while to access surf breaks and I used to surf fish quite a bit till it got so crowded. I am familiar with the rallying cries: "My family's been driving on these beaches since I was a child", "This is how I make my living (dory fishing)", "I love picnicking on the beach", "I've surf fished in tournaments down there for over 30 years"...and so on. I truly respect all of these folks' experiences.
We're at a critical point on our barrier islands now. I believe planning decisions now must be more slowly transitional toward larger strategic goals in how ever increasing population here will have to live and behave. All the signs are there, however they keep jumping up one at a time. Here are a few examples.
In one of my earlier posts ("Since Hurricane Noel and Why We Must Keep Wearing Leashes in Town", Friday, November 16, 2007) I told the story how a deal to mandate the use of surf leases was made in Kill Devil Hills years ago in order to keep swimmers safe from loose surfboards. To surfers, the deal also helped avoid restrictions requiring surfing only in specific areas or only during certain hours of the day. The "deal" still holds. But there are other signs of too many of us here as well. It doesn't help that we all are somehow imbued with an overwhelming sense of entitlement about having it our way whatever "it" may be: personal right to drive on the beaches or economic right to profit from others doing so.
Now that much of the oceanfront is developed in the towns, we're naturally trying to come up with ways to protect our investments and tax base. The oceanfront development approach used to be, "build light structures which can be lifted and moved back from the encroaching ocean." It has now become, use giant sandbags, proposed beach sand re-nourishment, and any other man-made structures to arrest the erosion and migration of sand to protect our tax base.
Other little day-to-day behaviors have had to change too. Many locals are now walking their dogs on leases, following behind them with bags to pick up their excrement in a responsible effort to avoid fecal coliform pollution of estuaries and canals from runoff---too many people, too many dogs. (I have one too and love him.) There are so many of us here now that it's come to this, to reiterate---we're carrying bags of dog poop around behind our animals. Doesn't this say something to someone about the local demographics and where it's going?
So now it's vehicles on the beach, many vehicles brought by their many owners...many, many vehicles and many, many owners. Arguably the most beautiful, pristine beaches in the nation, now replete with traffic and parking lots just above the tideline. The convenience of having all your stuff at hand on the beach is not lost on me. As I said before, I'm out there too.
But here is another way I reacted to having my truck on the beach with me once. Years ago my wife and I were on Ocracoke Island for a few days and decided to drive down on the beach and relax. We parked tailgate to the ocean, pulled out beach chairs and set up. Other ORVs pulled up and parked near us as the day went on. They kept coming. It dawned on us we could have nearly the same atmosphere if we took our ORV and beach chairs out to our little, local, shopping plaza parking lot and sat in the sun (except for the ocean, of course)---vehicles all around us.
We didn't come here to sit oceanside in a parking lot of oil and hydraulic-dripping vehicles. There's this personal desire by all people to use the ORV advantage to get right where you want to go (because with these vehicles we can), however for us there was also the undeniable conflict with the natural setting exacerbated by the arrival of more ORVs.
I understand the economic, tourism benefits of vehicle access to these beaches. I really do. I just wonder if there might be a way the multitude of ORV users can see through a different lens how this is transforming our beaches, and how each of us is a part of this process. Only then will we all be able to come together to affect a solution that may temper the intensifying use, lest we trample and destroy the very thing we all love so much albeit in different ways.
If the transition is a soft one toward a different approach to beach access, I truly believe the local economies will adapt and ultimately benefit from this change. But not until we all see ourselves desiring the same end result---beautiful beaches with more room for more people and wildlife, but maybe a little less room for traffic and parking lots and ORV clusters. Consider the ultimate lesson our barrier islands teach us---the only constant is change, so adapt.
I don't know, if it's too late. Bold lines have been drawn in the sand now. Both sides stand in stark opposition to the other. And I don't believe it's just about endangered animal species anymore...maybe we're just as endangered by ourselves. There's just too, too many of us.
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4 comments:
Wow, sure hope that remote feeling of freedom at the Cape remains.
Somehow mankind seems to discover something beautiful then gradually destroy it.
Best to you Skip!
jack.
The spectacle of SUVs lined up hub-to-hub from Billy Mitchell to the Lighthouse pretty much killed any desire I had to be on the beach one particular afternoon. The final shot was the number of SUVs prowling the line-up looking for a vacant spot. As you say, the parking lot of a Wal-Mart has the same charm.
The folks doing the political communications for the ORV crowd are pitching an anachronistic view of things. While they tout "tradition" and such, the fact is that tradition is over and done with. The days of driving Pea Island looking for a sandbar break and perhaps encountering one or two other vehicles have been replaced with days of endless traffic driving up and down the beach.
It's a lot like family farms. They are pretty much vanishing from the NC scene, replaced with corporate farms. Corporate farms have their values, primarily the relatively low cost of food in the US. But when a farm bill is in front of the legislatures, their pitch to the voters is always the family farmer.
The drawbacks to corporate farms tend to be ecological problems like growing water-hungry crops in dry areas: growing cotton in Texas has depleted many water sources.
If the ORVs have a benefit to the Outer Banks economy that should be weighted against potential harm - ecological and otherwise.
I'm still waiting for the day that 10k+ people get caught on Hatteras by a storm and a closed bridge.
Well said and very well considered. We do need to find a balance, but as you realize all to well, drawing lines, setting limits, then deciding who gets what, is a very painful process. It is made harder by groups on all sides who profit by defending hard line interests. It becomes their job.
In a thoughtful way your piece reminds me of the old joke about the Nags Head Conservationist who wanted to blow up the bridges ... after they got across.
You are right we are putting enormous stress on a fragile ecosystem and it doesn't respond to change. Yet we all want/expect to continue to live as we have despite the increased pressure. Something we can't do. It is a scary scenario.
But what is even scarier is that no one and I mean no one seems to want to step up at take on the burden of leading us through these difficult decisions. You know, as I do, that we need people to step up and get involved. To run for election, to provoke the discussions yet few do and we are left with local demagogues and non-local interests determining our destinies. It makes it hard for us to protect our community's interests.
Thanks for all you do for us.
Great piece of writing. Thanks for the nod.
Bob
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