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As expected, the National Park Service wants to replace the current cabins at the Great Island camp with 30 modern duplexes that meet all building and sanitary codes.
In the so-called "preferred amendment" to its management plan that the Park Service released for public review this summer, a ferry from Davis will continue to provide access to the camp.
Under an alternative plan that the Park Service also endorses, 10 of the 30 cabins would be "rustic" shelters with no running water and "communal" bathrooms. If the alternative is chosen, long-term parking at the Great Island camp would be cut in half -- to 30 vehicles ¾ during the summer in order to reduce driving on the beach to protect nesting turtles and piping plovers.
The parking area near Les and Sally Moore's old fish camp would be eliminated under either proposal.
The Park Service plans to enter into a long-term contract with a concessionaire, who would be required to build the new camp. Karren Brown, the superintendent of Cape Lookout National Seashore, has said that the camp will be phased in over five years and that its size will be reduced to 50 acres from the present 200 acres. The Park Service, she said, will require the new concessionaire to build duplexes similar to ones built on neighboring Portsmouth Island. Brown doesn't think the new contract would be ready for bids until 2001 at the earliest.
A new camp is needed, the Park Service explains in the draft plan, because the current cabins fail to meet building codes and thus attract a "narrow clientele" ¾ translation: surf fishermen. Though visitation to the camp has risen 16 percent during the past six years to 18,400 people annually, most use the camp duringt
he fall fishing season. The camp remains
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