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I appreciate the opportunity to be here. I think it’s important that the people who work in the park understand some of the background and history of its creation, because it is a different kind of park, probably different from all other parks in the system.
I want to make this as useful to you as possible, so I hope you will interrupt with questions at any point. What I want to do is give a little of the history of the role of the communities in the creation of this park, discuss some of the key issues we should be working on together and then close with some thoughts about the future.
In December 1955 a group of people who opposed an announced plan of the Town of Islip to build a service road from the Lighthouse tract to Ocean Beach met in Ocean Beach to make their opposition known. At least 500 people tuned out, an amazing assembly for Ocean Beach -- and this was four years before the Captree Bridge to Fire Island was built. The group formed itself into the Fire Island Voters Association on the theory that politicians respond only to votes.
The service road was rejected by Islip, but people who felt they, or their communities, needed such a road have long since created it anyway. But, because it does not exist officially, at least the general public is prevented from using it and this remains the only developed barrier island in the US that does not have a formal road system. This is a defining aspect of Fire Island, both as a National Park and as a group of summer residential communities.
It was not only Islip that thought a road along Fire Island would be a good idea. Robert Moses conceived an ocean boulevard that would run from the southern tip of Staten Island all the way along the south shore barrier island system to Bridgehampton. No one who has ever driven along Ocean Parkway past Jones Beach to Robert Moses State Park can fail to be impressed by that vision and by the extent to which it was actually achieved. It is safe to say that there is no
chance that a project like that will ever again be built in America.
Within days of the 1938 Hurricane Moses went public with detailed plans and sketches of the roadway he proposed for Fire Island. World War II soon intervened, but following the hurricanes of the 1950s and early 1960s, he was back again. What most are not aware of is that Moses’ plan called for development of whatever space was left over when his highway project was constructed. He did not understand that it was development that the residents – his chief
opposition – wanted to avoid. It was to end the threat of the kind of development that had characterized New Jersey and Westhampton that the Voters Association started petitioning the Congress to keep Fire Island permanently free of further development by making it a National Seashore.
This was opposed by the Park Service - for good reasons. The park is too small, it has too many people living in it, relative to its size, and so forth. Nevertheless, at one point in the early 1960s there were no fewer than three bills in Congress calling for creation of the park, each a result of pressure from Fire Islanders. Even after one was finally passed in 1964 a legal action had to pressed against the Park Service to get on with it. Part of the impetus for
this was the fact that Bayberry Dunes was springing up very rapidly and more of the open space that people wanted to preserve was being lost. Bayberry Dunes, of course, became Watch Hill, and some of you may be quartered there today.
So my first point to you is that it was the people who enjoyed Fire Island most that caused this park to be created. In my opinion, it is the best thing that ever happened to the south shore of Long Island. There is not another location in the world where this much coastline is open and available to the public, so close to a major urban center. As Long Island development continues, Fire Island will be looked to increasingly as a recreation area. Up to now, the
mainland itself has been a fairly nice place to spend the summer in without the need to take an eleven dollar ferry ride to find a beach to enjoy for a day. That’s changing.
There are numerous references in the Congressional Record to the way Congress intended the Seashore to work. I won’t bother you with extensive quotes. Suffice to say that the bill sponsors all saw the need for a close and harmonious relationship between the communities and the park if the Seashore was going to be able to function, and this was continued in later amendments to the original legislation. In fact, at one point, Congress came close to cutting the New
York DEC out of the picture entirely, preferring an arrangement that ran directly from the feds to the locals. This would have been a mistake, in my view, because the state regulatory authority can be made to work in tandem with that of the Seashore for the benefit of the resource as a whole.
I will use that statement as a jumping off place to get into a discussion of some of the key issues affecting the communities today. As you know, the proposed Fire Island Interim Project is far and away the main topic of concern for Fire Islanders. This project will bring the beaches up to about nine feet of elevation, 60-90 feet of width, and bring the dunes to an average of 15 feet. This will improve the island’s ability to withstand storms somewhat better than
they will today, and thus to provide protection against the island breaching and having subsequent storms to impact the mainland. The project is called interim because it is a bridge to the longer term project known as the reformulation study.
After long discussions, the Department of the Army and the Department of the Interior have signed an agreement to move forward on this. There were many reasons for delay in getting to this point, but I think the main one has to do with the very thing that led to the creation of the park in the first place: the fear of over development. And this is where the state of New York comes in.
Article 34 of the state’s Environmental Conservation Law is designed to control development in Erosion Hazard Areas. It is a good law that incorporates much of the best found in other states’ coastal construction control laws. It is only now in effect on Fire Island, but it must be in effect if there is to be an Interim or Reformulation project.
Article 34 accomplishes the objective of controlling development by making development impossible in the project area. The owners of the property upon which the project is to be constructed must provide an easement, or transfer the property in fee, to the state if the project is going to be built. We have heard a lot about people "building on the fragile dunes," but this won’t happen here because the "fragile dunes" that are constructed in this
project won’t be owned -- for building purposes -- by the people who want to build.
Cornelia Dean’s new book -- which I recommend to anyone involved in the debate about beach replenishment -- talks about a planned community in the Florida panhandle that involved keeping the dunes free of private development. The community was laid out with broad avenues leading toward the dunes, gazebos on the public walkovers, but no houses in the dune area, just as is contemplated by Article 34. Where the dune is fully reconstructed in front of the existing
first row of houses, instead of simply being augmented, we have a chance to maintain a dune system and the reservoir of sand to take the force out of storm waves. This, combined with the public nature of the beach, shows the future of beach replenishment projects in America.
Let me mention some other key issues. Incidentally, FIA has a web-site (www.fireislandassn.org) and on it I’ve posted an article from the Fire Island Tide of last June. I think the issues discussed in that article are pretty much the same ones we are dealing with today.
DEER:
My opinion is that the immunosterilization project is our best hope for eventually solving this problem. I’m delighted that the Seashore has taken this project over. I hope we can work toward a day when each community can decide the extent to which they want the local herd reduced and then find a way to pay the darters to gradually accomplish this. I fully understand that a big reason the deer are in the communities is that they find food there more readily than
in the wild. The education process about feeding deer has to involve the Seashore and the community associations, working together. The communities have to come down on those who feed deer for recreational purposes. And the Seashore has to cooperate with a couple of well-publicized, heavy fines on repeat offenders. People can’t be permitted to choose which laws they will and will not obey.
EXOTIC SPECIES
On the other hand, not all laws, or park regulations, is perhaps a more exact term, can be expected to be observed. I think we could make more progress in the exotic species area by education than by tough enforcement. People are going to want to enhance their property with plants that are not natural to the environment, and some of these are going to be problematic – bamboo and Russian olive, for example. I would treat these plants differently: I would try to
educate people why Russian olive is bad for the area – if it is – but I would require people to pay for the removal of any bamboo that spreads outside of their property boundaries.
I think the way to get the word out on this is through periodic weekend meetings with community leaders and garden clubs to exchange information on the best plants. I would designate park staffers with the responsibility for community outreach in this area. It would be slow at first, one or two people, but in a season or two there would be more interest and eventually the points would get across.
DRIVING
Another key issue is driving. This is a bedrock issue to those year round residents who believe a way of life is threatened every time someone mentions improving enforcement of the permit regulations. But I believe it is of fundamental importance to Fire Island – both the park and the communities – that it remain an island without a formal road system, an island on which recreational driving is prohibited and essential driving is strictly regulated.
As everyone knows, the ferries say they do not offer an adequate winter ferry schedule because everyone drives. The people who drive say they have no choice because there is no adequate winter ferry schedule. I believe the key is a combination of incentives and disincentives that would have the effect of making people want to drive less.
I am looking forward to the interviews that are being set up on this topic, because it is important that everyone with an opinion be heard. I am, however, a little disconcerted by the concept of negotiating a regulation through consensus. Unpleasant as public hearings sometimes are, they can also be a vital part of the policy-making process.
CONCLUSION
Let me close with some observations on longer term policy issues. First, we know the kinds of pressures the park currently is laboring under when it comes to the Endangered Species Act and similar legislation. You have no choice about enforcing these laws and I suppose if you didn’t do it right you could go to jail along with the homeowner whose cat is not on a leash in plover nesting area.
A criticism being heard more and more, however, is that the Park Service hopes to make Fire Island more of a nature preserve and less of a recreation area, as originally envisioned. To those who worked hard to create the park, that is something of a betrayal. To them, the key to a happy Fire Island is to have it known and utilized as a recreational resource for Long Island.
Preservation of natural and animal resources certainly seems to be the order of the day so far as the organized environmental community is concerned. But strict rules about not controlling mosquitoes, and rumors about releasing Northeast Beach Tiger Beetle larvae into the wind current at Sandy Hook to see if one or two could take up residence on Fire Island get people alarmed. It makes people wonder if it wouldn’t be better to petition Congress to change the
mission of the park. I have heard talk, as some of you may have, of combining the park with Gateway as a way of focusing on its recreational function. I assume this would involve making the William Floyd Estate part of Wertheim National Wildlife Refuge.
Demand for recreational beaches will grow and this will mean added pressure on the Wilderness Area. Many would like to see two or three more visitor centers in that eight-mile reach. I expect my friend Joe Zysman would fling himself in front of that particular train, but I mention the idea as a way of showing what things come under consideration when the park comes to be seen as more a nature preserve and less a place for Long Islanders and others to visit for
recreation purposes.
I understand that the Park Service sets very strict rules for parks to observe. But rules can usually be interpreted by local administrators in a way that accomplishes the overall mission. Slavish adherence to outmoded rules and regulation is not good government; it is the opposite of that. Congress was very clear that working cooperatively with the communities was a prime objective of the Fire Island National Seashore. When questions of rule interpretation come up,
the question should be asked: What is the consequence of yielding a bit? Is it more important than improving relationships with the community partners?
I’m not suggesting the park roll over on major issues that go to the purpose of the park, but I do believe that maintaining that spirit of co-operation should be one of the objectives of park management.
I think the communities, and their separate associations, as well as the Fire Island Association, should be considered assets and allies in the park attaining its mission. They are not interlopers in a national preserve, but co-workers in the task of preserving it. The Water Island adoption of the plover nest can be a good example of the two-way street we should be looking for. Obviously, there will be hardliners in the communities just as there will be in the park
administration. Our joint task will be to consider their opinions but not let them make us deaf to the opinions on the other side.
Another long term issue is to recognize the importance of the park working more closely with the mainland municipalities. I’m convinced that much more could be accomplished if the park went to the towns and said, "Here are our objectives for the park. What are yours? How can we work together to get a win for both of us?"
This involves each knowing the others’ prime concerns. I don’t know, but I would think the towns are at least as interested in maintaining a stream of tax revenue from the barrier islands as in anything. So the Seashore might want to show how they can help in that by working with the towns to keep zoning code infringements to a minimum.
I started out by saying that this park is different from all others in the system. Not only is it very small but it has seventeen communities that are an integral part of it. And, to repeat myself, those communities actually created the park, in order to prevent further development. All of which leaves the Seashore and the communities with an extraordinary opportunity to show what a small park close to a major urban center can provide to the region of which it is a
part. Can it do everything a larger park could do? No, it can’t. If it tries, it will not only fail but get a lot of people ticked off in the process.
Thank you for your attention.
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