he National Park Service released in December the final version of the amendment to the management plan for Cape Lookout National Seashore.  No substantial changes were made from previous versions.
In its preferred plan, the Park Service still intends to replace the current cabins at the Great Island Camp with 30 modern structures. New cabins are needed, the plan maintains, because the current structures don't meet building codes and attract a "specialized clientele" - the bureaucratic code name for we surf fishermen. A more modern camp, the Park Service hopes, will entice a more varied clientele to the park during the normally slow summer season.
The plan doesn't describe how the cabins will be designed or specify their location. Unlike draft versions, the final amendment doesn't require that the cabins be supplied with electricity from a central source.
The Park Service will still require the concessionaire to build the new camp.
DIFF is heartened to see that the latest revision recognizes surf fishing as an important part of the island's history. The plan commits the Park Service to including fishing in its interpretive programs about the island.
The club, in its letter to the Park Service on Jan. 8,  continued to support the basic concept of new cabins at the Great Island Camp. We, however, recommended that the best of the current cabins be kept as re

minders of the island's rich fishing heritage and that the new camp extend to the limits of the current water system. Bunching the cabins together, as they are on neighboring Portsmouth Island, would destroy the sense of seclusion that so many of us find so fetching about the current camp.
In the letter, we also strongly opposed two recommendation in an alternate plan that the Park Service is also considering. That plan would replace 10 cabins with "rustic lodging units" and would reduce by half the number of vehicles allowed to park long-term on the island during spring and summer to protect piping plovers and loggerhead sea turtles, two threatened or endangered species.
The club has in the past endorsed the concept of rustic units to appeal to those users who want something more than a tent but find cabins too lavish, but we could not support replacing 10 cabins with a like number of rustic units. Though the plan does not describe such units, we think they would have limited appeal. The club would, instead, prefer that the new cabins contain the same number of beds as do the current cabins. Less lavish accommodations could then be added to the mix if users demand them.
Reducing long-term parking at the Great Island Camp would affect a large number of our members. The alternate plan implies that reducing parking spaces in the spring and summer from 60 to 30 would protect nesting plovers and turtles, though the plan and the accompanying environmental assess

ment offer no evidence that off-road vehicles, especially those parked long term on the island, are harming either species. Neither does the plan explain how the Park Service determined the reduction needed to protect the animals. Why are 30 campers better than 60? Why not 25? Or 50? Without sound scientific data to justify such a reduction, the Park Service appears to have picked the number out of a hat. An action that will bar people from using the park should not made in such a capricious and arbitrary  manner.
At least, that's what we told the Park Service, which will make a decision on which plan to adopt in the next several weeks. DIFF has asked that the agency hold a public meeting before accepting the controversial recommendations in the alternate plan.
To get a copy of the plan, call Cape Lookout at 252-728-2250, ext. 3019. It's also posted on the web at www.nps.gov/calo/gmp.