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Photo Kaimi Rose Lum
Due to shorebird nesting, driving on the ocean beach — Race Point Beach in the above photo —was next to impossible for a portion of last summer. |
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Formal suggestions offered for ORV plan
By Kaimi Rose Lum
Banner Staff
The Cape Cod National Seashore Advisory Commission adopted by a unanimous vote last Friday a report prepared by the Off-Road Vehicle Subcommittee. Included in the report were several recommendations for courses of action the Seashore could take next spring should the nesting of piping plovers force an extensive closure of the back shore beaches.
Edgar W. “Butch” Francis, chair of the ORV subcommittee, listed the number of options available to the Seashore. Some of these were discussed already at a public meeting on the plover-ORV issue on Dec. 9, a well-attended meeting where many frustrated beach drivers expressed their lingering concern about last summer’s near-total, bird nesting-induced beach shut-down.
One option which was not disclosed until Friday’s meeting — a “last resort” option — involves opening the beach north of Herring Cove to ORV traffic in 2007, prior to June 30, “conditions allowing.”
In the event of a total or near-total closure in the future, the subcommittee is also recommending that the park open day-time access at Coast Guard Beach in Truro (but only before mid-June or after Labor Day); open the ORV route at High Head south toward Head of the Meadow prior to July 1, the usual opening date for that route; open the existing ORV route at High Head north toward Exit 8 prior to July 21, the usual opening date for that route; and work together with the U.S. Coast Guard, Race Point Lighthouse Foundation and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to provide limited access to Race Point Light when the dune road leading out to it is closed.
The Seashore could employ one or more of these alternatives at one time, depending on where the birds nest. Chief Ranger Steve Prokop said the nesting patterns of the plovers in past years have, at the height of nesting activity, left the Seashore with just a tenth of a mile open here and a tenth of a mile there.
Having this range of options will increase the odds that “at least something will be open,” Prokop said.
Seashore Supt. George Price told the commission, “What we’re trying to do is get some options in our pocket that are consistent with the negotiated rule-making.”
In the summer of ’06, the Seashore was forced for the first time to close all of the ORV corridor along the Atlantic-facing beaches because of piping plover nesting. The shorebirds are listed under the Endangered Species Act as a threatened species, and the Seashore is required by law to protect them.
The closure lasted 14 days in late June and early July, and for an entire month only one-fifth of a mile of beach or less was open, according to the subcommittee’s report.
The ORV subcommittee hosted the Dec. 9 public meeting at the Province Lands Visitor Center and also met with Seashore staff last Tuesday, Dec. 12, to go over the options.
klum@provincetownbanner.com
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Dec 21st, 2006