August 20th 2008 • HOME •

Watching the National Park Service

We think there need be no conflict between these goals, but some private Fire Island organizations have been interpreting the goals as contradictory. We should perhaps make an analytical distinction between the law, and the social good. Sometimes laws are bad, in which case we would advocate changing them. But with regard to the Fire Island environment, we see little need to do this. We think the existing laws serve the interest of both the environment and the communities; all that is needed is for the public to get behind the laws, and to fight the interests who are trying to undermine the laws. What are these laws? They are unambiguous: the purpose of FINS is to conserve and preserve for the use of future generations relatively unspoiled and undeveloped beaches, dunes, and other natural features as examples of unspoiled areas of great natural beauty. The National Park Service is charged to "administer and protect the Fire Island National Seashore with the primary aim of conserving the natural resources located there." (Public Law 88-587) Note the word "primary."

Although the property owners' organizations are dominated by lawyers, their reading of the law is difficult to reconcile with what the law actually says. In 1998 the Fire Island Association hired a law firm and a battery of consultants to attack the National Park Service's efforts to protect the environment. The NPS was accused of being "anti-public" (p. 5), engaging in a "back door" attempt to restrict the public's right to use the island, "short circuit[ing]" established procedures (p. 1), considering the place "their island" rather than the property owners', and irrationally "vent[ing] their frustration" at, and "punish[ing]," residents (pp. 5-6). However, there was no convincing documentation of such claims, and the argumentation struck us as weak, and inconsistent with the law.

During the summer of 1998 spokesmen for the Service held meetings in some Fire island communities and, from all reports, were usually well received. But some community leaders sought to prevent meaningful meetings. Fire Island Pines' leaders told the NPS that Community House would not be made available to the Service during the summer or even most of September. The Service was offered an hour immediately following the late-September FIPPOA meeting. The NPS meeting was not pre-announced (even FIPPOA members did not know about it until they came to the FIPPOA meeting). With the exception of our representative (who happened to be there but who had no foreknowledge of the NPS part of the meeting), the few dozen people who attended were silent or sympathetic to FIPPOA's anti-environmentalism; residents in general had been effectively excluded.

While we do not always agree with the National Park Service, we think that good communication between them and the communities is essential if the various problems of Fire Island are to be resolved intelligently and to general public satisfaction. You may wish to consult the web site of the Fire Island National Seashore . Especially recommended is their Environmental Assessment (whose "preferred alternative" has now been put into effect).

The FINS has another problem. The way the NPS works, money is allocated on the basis of visits to a park. However, visitors are not considered visitors to the park if they access the park via one of the villages on the island. These people's primary destination is deemed to be the village, not the park. But it is to the villages that almost all the ferries go, and that is how beach-goers get there. Because of this budgetary device, FINS is vastly underfunded.

In the future, we plan to carry more commentaries on the work of (and community reaction to) the NPS.

Updated 15 May 2000 99