| Shooting the Breeze | |
| February 23, 2009 UPDATE: Will the negotiators reach a consensus at final meeting?
 The
members of the integration subcommittee of the negotiated rulemaking
committee, who have also been dubbed the “Super Nine,” met
for five days earlier this month in Manteo.The goal of this smaller group was to craft a consensus proposal to put before the 29-member negotiated rulemaking committee at its final meeting on Thursday and Friday, Feb. 26 and 27, at the Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kill Devil Hills. The group met on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, Feb. 11-13, and on Monday and Tuesday, Feb. 16 and 17. Much of the discussion over the five days centered on the draft proposed ORV access routes and areas maps, and the group members were not able during the five days to reach agreement on a final package to present to the full negotiated rulemaking committee. “The good news,” said Cape Hatteras National Seashore Superintendent Mike Murray, a member of the RegNeg committee and the Super 9, “is that there was progress.” Murray said in a meeting with members of the media last Wednesday, Feb. 18, that for a number of days during the integration committee meetings, it “didn’t seem like there was any progress.” “Toward the end,” he said, “there was a creative and good attempt for a package proposal.” Murray said the integration subcommittee members agreed to keep working through the weekend and to try again to reach agreement on a proposal for the full committee in a conference call on Monday, Feb. 23. Apparently that conference call was postponed until Tuesday, Feb. 24. “It’s hard to predict what it will look like,” Murray said about a potential consensus package. “There is still a fundamental difference in stakeholders’ views and values,” he added. “But some of the things being discussed show a glimmer of hope.” “I am cautiously optimistic,” he added. The proposed maps for ORV routes and areas started with three proposals – from ORV access groups, environmental groups, and a pedestrian-only access group. The maps were reduced to two proposals during the five days of meetings, Murray said. Apparently, the environmental groups and the pedestrian group are now in agreement, but they still are not in agreement with the ORV groups. And, Murray added, the color purple has been dropped from the maps. So presumably the remaining designations are red for pedestrians only, green for ORV routes, and blue for pedestrian routes year-round and ORV routes in the off season. “Maybe,” Murray said, “there will be enough of a package to reach some consensus.” The negotiated rulemaking committee can reach consensus on some parts of the package for a final ORV rule by the seashore. It’s not all or nothing. If there is not a full consensus – if the committee cannot agree on everything – Murray and the seashore staff will craft the final rule, taking into account the committee deliberations and the areas upon which members agreed. The last meeting on Feb. 26 and 27 will begin each morning at 8:30 a.m. with the possibility that the committee could meet until 10 p.m. each day. The public can attend, and there is usually a public comment period at noon each day and at 5 p.m. at the first day of the meeting. CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE FEB. 26 & 27 MEETING AGENDA February 9, 2009
The meaning of the color purple and other news
from the negotiated rulemaking committee  What exactly is the meaning of the color purple? That discussion and other issues of beach access for people and vehicles dominated the one-day meeting of the National Park Service’s negotiated rulemaking committee on Tuesday, Feb. 3, at the Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kill Devil Hills. The 29-member committee of stakeholders has been negotiating a long-range plan for off-road-vehicle access in the Cape Hatteras National Seashore for 13 months and has just one more two-day meeting scheduled on Feb. 26-27 to complete its work. Most of the meeting was spent discussing maps that showed three different proposals for access to the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. According to the handouts at the meeting, the three proposals were devised by representatives from 12 groups included in the ORV access committee caucus, one representative for pedestrian-only access, and four members of the environmental and conservation caucus who represent five groups. The maps show areas of the seashore that would be open to ORVs, to pedestrians and ORVs seasonally, and to pedestrians only under an ORV rule. It should be noted that they are draft maps only for discussion purposes, and the committee has not reached consensus on any of the routes and areas. In fact, the members are far from a consensus on most of the areas that are most popular with visitors and locals and are also the most sensitive resource areas for breeding and non-breeding shorebirds. The three proposals are close in a few areas, such as Bodie Island spit, but still far apart when it comes to agreement on the use of the shoreline at Cape Point, the South Beach in Frisco, Hatteras Inlet and the South Point of Ocracoke. A subcommittee on routes and areas has been hashing out ORV routes for months and in the past month that subcommittee has had joint meetings with the subcommittee on natural resources. The maps uses color codes – blue for pedestrian year-round and ORVs off season, green for ORV routes year round except for restrictions if shorebirds nest in the area, and red for pedestrian only. They also denote piping plover and American oystercatcher nests and sea turtle nests and false crawls. In recent months another color has been added to the key – the color purple. The color purple shows up at inlets and spits and defines especially sensitive resource areas. According to the legend with the maps, purple represents ORV routes with seasonal restrictions. But that was not at all clear after a committee discussion at the meeting and follow up calls to members. The color purple apparently means different things to different groups and will play a large role in whether or not the group can reach consensus. Does the color purple mean that the inlets and spits are closed to ORVs during pre-nesting and nesting dates (roughly March 15 until Aug. 1) whether or not the birds are there and corridors can be established around the nest? Does the color purple mean that the areas are of special concern and ORV groups expect that some areas will be closed for nesting? Does the color purple denote areas that could be open to ORVs during nesting and pre-nesting but might not be? The committee and its facilitators have agreed that the meaning of the color purple needs more work. “Everybody is probably right somewhat,” Walker Golder, the National Audubon Society representative on the committee, said in a telephone interview. “We need to all sit down and decide what the color purple means.” Golder added that it would be appropriate for the subcommittee or the National Park Service to make that determination. (The maps are available on The Island Free Press Web site on the Beach Access Page. The link is http://islandfreepress.org/2009Archives/02.05.2009-DraftMapsOfORVRoutesFromNegotiatingCommitteeNowAvailable.html) The discussion about the access maps and what they mean continued for several hours – with each of the three caucuses that provided a proposal for the three access lines making a presentation and answering questions. Questions were asked about whether horseback riding would be allowed in pedestrian-only areas or only in ORV areas. Golder replied that it depended on “how many horses.” More questions were asked by the ORV caucus members about what activities would be allowed in “red areas” that are pedestrian only. Would flying kites, kiteboarding, surfing, and volleyball games be allowed? Golder replied that it depended on “how many volleyball games.” “If you have 20 volleyball games on the South Beach,” he said, “that’s a huge area of concern.” The South Beach in Frisco is a popular seashore beach that would be off limits to ORVs year-round under the proposal by the environmental groups. Golder said the proposal calls for an interdunal road behind the sand dunes with pedestrian access from that road when the beach is not closed for pre-nesting and nesting shorebirds. However, it was unclear from the discussion where ORVs on the interdunal road would park so people could walk to the beach, what activities would be allowed, and how many pedestrians would be too many. Golder and other members of the environmental caucus also came under fire from the ORV access folks when the maps were presented. Members of the ORV access groups were unhappy that the maps presented at the meeting, they said, were different from the maps discussed in the routes and areas subcommittee for much of the past year. Many of the closures to ORVs under the environmental group access proposal would be for not only breeding, but also non-breeding, shorebirds, including birds, such as red knots, that had not been part of the discussions for the past year. Golder told the committee that as he began to dig into the data on non-breeding shorebirds, he found studies that had not been made available to the committee. “This late information, it’s an insult,” said Trip Forman, who represents the watersports industry on the committee. “I wish they had been available last January,” Golder said at the meeting. In a phone interview, he said, “I was not charged as the gatherer of all literature.” Eventually, though, he said he did start a literature search. “The more I continued to dig into the literature, the more information I found….I think it would have been helpful for all of the natural resources data on the Cape Hatteras National Seashore to have been presented up front.” Golder also presented a list of the studies that he used in devising the access plan by the environmental groups. Access groups claim that most, if not all, of those studies are scientifically flawed and have not been independently peer-reviewed. The environmental groups say that they are the best available science. The negotiated rulemaking committee apparently has just one more shot at reaching consensus on ORV rules. And that will come at the Feb 26-27 meeting, which members have been advised may go on until 10 p.m. if necessary both days. In the meantime, an “integration subcommittee” of nine members will meet for four or five days over the next few weeks. According to the committee facilitators, the subcommittee’s job will be to take “all of the work that the subcommittees have done and develop a single package, a singular proposal.” That proposal will be presented to the full committee at its last meeting, and it will need consensus by all members to pass muster. One member voting against consensus will kill a proposal, although committee members can abstain from voting and not deal a lethal blow to a proposal. Membership of the integration subcommittee is still being worked out as members try to clear their schedules for up to five days of meetings. Jim Keene of the North Carolina Beach Buggy Association, Larry Hardham of the Cape Hatteras Anglers Club, and Carla Boucher of the United Four Wheel Drive Associations will represent ORV access groups. Walker Golder of the National Audubon Society, Derb Carter of the Southern Environmental Law Center, and Destry Jarvis, representing Natural Resources Defense Council and the Wilderness Society will sit in for environmental/conservation groups. Jim Lyons will represent pedestrian-only interests for the Cape Hatteras Recreational Alliance. Warren Judge, Dare County’s representative on the committee, or Lee Wrenn, his alternate, will represent local governments, and Mike Murray will represent the National Park Service. As one committee member noted, this approach means that the subcommittee will “go into a room and not come out until they have a proposal.” It is not likely that the integration subcommittee meetings will be open to the public – and perhaps not even to other committee members, who may be called in to provide information during the meetings. Whatever proposal the subcommittee crafts in its four or five days of meetings will be presented to the full committee and the public on Feb. 26 and 27 at the Wright Brothers National Memorial pavilion in Kill Devil Hills. FOR MORE INFORMATION The draft access maps are available on The Island Free Press Web site on the Beach Access Page. The link is http://islandfreepress.org/2009Archives/02.05.2009-DraftMapsOfORVRoutesFromNegotiatingCommitteeNowAvailable.html) Documents distributed at the Feb. 3 meeting of the negotiated rulemaking committee will eventually be available on the National Park Service Planning Web site at http://parkplanning.nps.gov/documentsList.cfm?parkId=358&projectId=10641 And a video tape of the Feb. 3 meeting should be available soon on the Dare County Web site, http://www.darenc.com. Look under negotiated rulemaking on the front page of the site on the right. |
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