|
The National Park Service is coming under increasing pressure from environmental groups to ban off-road vehicles from the 56 parks where they are currently allowed.
The latest threat comes from the Bluewater Network, a group in San Francisco that petitioned the Park Service in December to immediately ban ORVs in all parks, including Cape Lookout National Seashore.Sixty-five other environmental groups joined in the petition.
Such action, the groups say, is needed to protect the parks' natural resources. A study done by the Bluewater Network proports to document the environmental damage done by ORVs, but it's based almost entirely on general studies and contains very little evidence that's specific to any national park.
There is nothing in the Bluewater report, for instance, that shows vehicles are damaging Cape Lookout, though the park is among those included in the group's petition ban. Instead, the study contains the claim based on studies done elsewhere that vehicles increase beach erosion, a rather silly charge considering the island's 3-foot natural erosion rate.
The Park Service, though, must respond to the petition. Cape Lookout is currently studying the effects of vehicles on the island after another environmental groups threatened a lawsuit last year. Karren Brown, the park's superintendent, expects a draft of the study to be completed by March 1.
"I have no documentation to ban
vehicles," she said. "I can't support vehicles and I can't ban them because I have no documentation. We have no information that vehicles are harming endangered species."
Recognizing the threat, the DIFF Club's Board of Directors formed a
committee that is looking for groups with whom that we can align ourselves.
|
|
