Dear Editor;
 
Once again it is unconscionable that a paper such as the Va. Pilot advocate that the citizens of the United States abdicate their 1st Amendment right to petition their elected officials for a redress of a wrong but instead place their faith in a judge who presided over an issue framed by a well funded, high profiled, single issue, special interest groups. For this paper to suggest Congress is wrong to answer the cry of the people who are feeling the unnecessary negative economic effects of the “sensible short term approach” is out of touch. The consent decree was a preconceived set of draconian rules by the new “Resources Managers” the special interest groups and a U.S. Solicitor sitting in a smoke filled room, where the scientific basis for those rules is never viewed by the public challenged or tested in open court.
Your editorial states that 23.9 miles are open to motorized access is not fully accurate. If you calculate the opportunities for motorized access in the NPS access report from ramp to ramp within the seashore, the totals are 20.4 miles. Additionally in the resource closure report, it is interesting that pedestrians constitute 76% of the recorded violations. One could safely conclude NPS has an impossible management task under the consent decree.
Furthermore to suggest the current Negotiated Rule Making process should accelerate on a “fast track” schedule is misleading. The National Park Service has demonstrated failure through ineptness and inaction over the last 36 years to complete and finalize an off road vehicle management plan. It is clear the process is finally moving forward on a time schedule set forth by the government and it is also clear that 3 environmental groups at the table filed this lawsuit to disrupt the process and further their long-range agenda of eliminating motorized access from the Cape Hatteras National Seashore Recreational Area.
Finally, it makes me wonder if the editors ever actually think about what they are writing, or if they just advocate what they receive in a Press Release as their own thought.
 
 
John Couch, President
Outer Banks Preservation Association
                               P.O. Box 1355
Buxton N.C. 27920
1-252-995-4955 work

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