Alternatives ready for panel working on N.C. Beach-driving

When negotiators working on a beach-driving plan for off-road vehicles at Cape Hatteras National Seashore come to the table again next week, they'll have - for the first time - proposed alternatives to give them guidance.

The five management options eventually will be included in the draft environmental impact statement that will be released next fall.

Mike Murray, superintendent of the National Park Service Outer Banks Group, said he decided it would be helpful to the 29-member negotiated rule-making advisory committee to release the alternatives a year early.

"The primary idea is to give the committee something to work with," Murray said at a news meeting Thursday.

Alternatives include:

- Continuation of existing management policies, either based on the interim management plan or on the consent decree that is in place.

- Seasonal management, which would establish ORV routes and seasonal closings.

- Simplified and predictable management, which would designate year-round ORV use in certain areas and ban it in sensitive areas.

- Varied access and maximum management, which would provide ORV pass-through routes at Bodie Island Spit, Cape Point and South Point and provide more public access to more areas of the seashore.

The proposals are not meant to be negotiated. Ultimately, Murray said, the goal is for the committee to use the Park Service's alternatives as a jumping off point to create its own alternative that everyone could agree on.

"It can incorporate bits and pieces," he said. "It doesn't have to be all or nothing."

Whatever the committee comes up with, Murray said, it has to cover the same topics in the Park Service's matrix.

All the alternatives deal with access, resource protection buffers, safety closings and ORV corridors.

Only the interim management no-action option would require no type of permit. Two alternatives also would establish carrying capacity restrictions - meaning how many ORVs would be allowed in certain areas - based on social, ecological and spatial concerns.

"Those are the three primary elements and it can be defined based on one, all three, or a combination," Murray said.

"The reality is, people expect it to be crowded on a holiday weekend. But it can get to a point where it's too crowded."

The hard part for the committee will be coming to a consensus on an alternative, a requirement agreed on when it started meeting in January. The ORV management plan must be completed by Dec. 31, 2010. A final rule will be issued April 1, 2011.

"It doesn't mean everybody has to be satisfied. It means that everybody has to believe it was fair and be willing to accept the decision," Murray said. "The best description I've heard from the facilitators is they say it's like a bucket of crabs and each crab is a different issue.

"It's naive for anyone to think we're going to happily agree to everything. It's going to be a negotiated series of compromises and trade-offs. There's a lot of crabs in the bucket."

Murray will review the alternatives at the next meeting of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore Negotiated Rulemaking Advisory Committee to be held on Nov. 14 and 15 at Wright Brothers National Memorial. They can be seen at: http://tinyurl.com/5qeuf9.

Catherine Kozak, (252) 441-1711, cate.kozak@pilotonline.com