PLEASE HELP US!!! an entire Island cries. These were the words written on Cape Hatteras Point in Buxton, NC spelled out in cars, to be seen by aerial view. This was done by over 1,500 people in a protest to keep their beach open. America was losing it's first national seashore and Mass media was silent.
At the expense of tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue, an incalculable loss of civil liberty and personal freedom, America's oldest National Park has been closed to the public over a bird, the piping plover. This bird is not endangered nor is it indigenous to the Island. Furthermore, there has not been one peer reviewed bit of science to show that people being in the park harmed the bird in anyway. Instead, everything is based on correlation studies which are ignoring other massive variables such as storms and deal with such small numbers that one single nesting pair can account for more than 10% of the total population. Furthermore since the beach closing began the bird population has dropped 20%.
Legally, the area is a Recreational Park by law and not a wild life refuge. In fact, when park was created, congress conducted three different studies acts which determined that lands adjacent to the parks would be sufficient for wild life, and they were set aside for just that. Furthermore, the park was shut down by the decree of an activist judge on the pretext of an executive order from the 1970s which just suddenly became important in 2008. This is an unconstitutional act, because neither the judicial branch or the executive branch have the power to overturn a congressional law. But that is what has happened. To make things worse, the groups which sued to cause the park closure, are not even aware of their abuses. One of these groups, the Audubon Society, is quite hypocritical as they are currently selling land acquired for "birds" to developers to make subdivisions, for 25 million dollars. So we can see clearly what this is really about.
But as activist groups tend to go, the rank and file members of environmental organizations are as wholly ignorant of what is actually done with their money as much as supporters of an evangelist TV preacher are. They assume wrongly that no one is hurt and that they are just helping the environment.
For example, the Southern Environmental Law Center, actually wrote in their news letter that there was no economic impact to the Islanders after closing their beach for the entire tourist season. They also falsely framed the issue as a conflict between saving animals and beach buggy drivers. They did not mention that animal populations as a whole have dropped, as the NPS is murdering hundreds of animals as part of predators control to save a few eggs. Also the bird populations have shrank. They also do not mention that the beach closures have nothing to do with driving on the beach as the park is closed to everyone, on foot or not, even to animals which will be shot, or gassed, if they enter the park. They do not mention the hundreds of thousands of dollars it has cost to pay the NPS to police the beach. And they straight up lied about their not being any economic impact to Cape Hatters for that is not true. Of course, there was no study sited, there weren't any sources for anything. It was just proclaimed by Derb Carter and ihis ilk emptily. This is because no study was even done. PEOPLE were not important enough to know about. And no one bothered to ask the locals or visitors how they felt about not being able to go to the public beach, which had been enjoyed for generations and promised by the US government to be open to the public upon its creation.
Currently, the entire local government of Dare County, the US congressman for the area Walter Jones, and both US Senators, Kay Hagan (D) and Richard Burr (R), as well as the state senator Marc Bassnight and the North Carolina governor Bev Perdue, all support open beaches. Both the House and the Senate have bills in place to re-open the beaches. The Senate bill is bipartisan and cosponsored by both of NC senators. In essence, the entire elected portion of government, which is to represent the will of the people actually effected by their decisions, is behind open beaches. On the other side, the side giving away other people's land, who are not effected because the don't live in the area that they are stealing from, are these activist groups who don't have a clue what is even going on.
This is why laws are supposed to come from the legislative branch and not judges. The legislative branch is elected and can be held accountable for bad decisions. They are also elected by a majority vote and not by a minority with money. But instead of their being a will of the people, it has become the will of the interest groups. The people have been ignored, their government officials are ignored, and the press on the issue has been utterly misleading. All the power has come to this unconstitutional judge and ignorant do-good interest groups who we have caught selling property for profit.
Not everyone can afford a home on the beach. A public beach was always available to those who do not own private beach front land. Sure the out of state home builders from New Jersey and other areas who built multiple rental homes on Hatteras during the credit bubble might enjoy forcing the visitors to rent their cottages to use the beach on thier private property, by closing the access to the publicly available areas. And the northern half of the county may enjoy transferring Hatteras's traffic up the beach to their own areas. And sure the NPS can get paid to do nothing when they simply close the park. But hey this is about birds right? Riiiight.
Why when this is an issue in North Carolina, is it in a Virginia paper, mid inland, in Charlottesville? Good question. Why are some people in Charlottesville so involved in what is happening to birds and land use in North Carolina? We have to write to Charlottesville, because that is where many of the destructive buffoons live who sit on the board of the Southern Environmental Law Center. We're hoping the good people of Charlottesville will raly with the people of the Outer Banks in outrage at what these Law Centers have done. We have to write to these scoundrels, in order for them to understand and recognized what they have been doing to people in a place, I dare say they've probably never been to and are currently not welcome.
To put it as simply as possible, we are no longer allowed to walk on the beach. They closed a beach on an Island. The results were very predictable. Dare county now has over a quarter of the population unemployed. Millions have been lost. It's a tourist economy. No one wants to go to an Island when they can't go to the public beach. Hatteras had a good thing. Instead of being peppered with private condos like every where else, we had a park set aside purely for recreation but not development. Now we have nothing but signs saying no humans allowed and unless you're the right type of bird, we'll kill you.
It's illegal for an executive order to over turn the law. It's illegal for a judge to overturn a law. It is asinine to close a beach on an Island especially when their is a bird sanctuary right next to it. It is wrong to punish the public for the Park Service's failure to comply with the governments own rules. What is the point of having a recreational park that doesn't allow recreation?
Oh but environmental groups are always eager to give away other people's land. They will let you assume it is to protect an endangered species. It isn't. They will let you assume, that the only people it is harming are big bad, greedy developers, who drive over turtle eggs in hummers that run of the fuel of baby seals. Nothing is the case. There are in fact no developers because the issue is about a park which by definition is already closed to development. All they have done is prevent me from taking my one year old to the beach to play in the sand. They prevent people from fishing with their families. They prevent people from sun bathing, surfing, playing beach volley ball, looking for shells, walking, cooking out, swimming, enjoying wild life, flying kites, or any kind of recreational activity you can think of, done on a beach. It's all been banned. Your park has been stolen from you.
Support S 1557 to undo the damage caused by this mentally deficient judge who holds the current record for the number of decisions reversed, and the wildly irresponsible acts of ignorant environmental groups who apparently didn't bother to investigate the impact of their ideologically based actions.
If you are part of the Southern Environmental Law Center or Audubon Society, I suggest you ask them what is going on, or just resign. And if you work for one of these groups then I say this, "Stop Hurting Us" leave us alone. The bird is fine, it has been more than 40 years since the executive order was issued. Get a clue, don't champion a cause for the sake of there being a cause. Figure out what you are actually doing to people before you act.
-Ryan Dawson Native Island Resident.
Related
Old King Boyle, punishes the public for the government breaking its own rules
DC trip to lobby for free about opening the beaches
