These are the comments I sent into the NPS on their General plan for the Channel Islands National Park. The NPS "preferred alternative" calls for, among other things, expansion of the kayak rental at Scorpion into a permanent concession with employee housing and extensive development at Becher's Bay on Santa Rosa including a hotel, restaurant and jeep tours. Comments must be received by Jan 9. If you follow the link there are instructions on how to comment.
We
have been traveling by boat to the Channel Islands for 35 years and are deeply
familiar with its unique wild beauty. We strongly oppose any concessions
or new development within the Channel Island National Park other than limited
rustic camping. The impacts of development such as hotels, restaurants
and on-island equipment rentals as envisioned in the NPS preferred alternate 3,
would be profound and would include wildlife disruption, sewage, trash, noise, pollution,
lights and increased danger of wildfires. The addition of employees of private
businesses, who are not trained or invested in the resource conservation
mission of the Park will create other problems. How will they be housed and
fed? What additional services will they ultimately demand? What kind of
oversight will park service staff have to provide to protect the resources? How
will enough water and electricity be supplied at to serve them?
We
oppose any attempt to increase interest in the CINP by creating more “things to
do” and attracting visitors who are looking for an experience that is different
than what the CINP already offers.
Currently visitors expect to pack their own food and water and be
prepared to deal with their own safety and first aid. There is no “entertainment”
available other than the magnificent and transformative experience of just
being present in this last wild corner of coastal Southern California. It is
not difficult to make a trip to the park today with the many charters
available. If visitors are not attracted to the park because it is not
comfortable or convenient enough, not “fun” enough, or they don’t feel like
planning ahead for their own needs, then they do not belong there. They are
less likely to be the kind of people who will protect the CINP resources and
more likely to be the kind who will create dangers and nuisances for other
visitors and park staff. Visitor traffic should be limited to people who can
deal with the harsh conditions and are prepared to take care of themselves.
An
important component of the Channel Islands experience, as with any rugged
wilderness trip, is self-sufficiency. This is especially true for children and
teens. Parents and teachers can tell kids, “You only have what you brought, you
can only experience what is all around you, you must leave no trace when you
go.” People can give themselves over to the experience of wildness. Even
minimal concessions will threaten this experience. You tell a kid, “If you want
to go to Johnson’s Lee you have to hike.” And they will say… “but look there’s
a jeep rental right over there.” Once a
permanent concession is established at Scorpion it will inevitably include a
store selling sunscreen and candy and ultimately “I love CI” t-shirts. Kids
will be pestering parents to buys things which is exactly what people go out
there to get away from. Hotels, food service, jeep tours or stores cannot be
offered to satisfy some visitors without fundamentally changing the nature of
the CINP experience in a way that cheapens it for all.
The
Channel Islands are an easy day trip away from hundreds of hotels and
restaurants in Santa Barbara and Ventura and the wilderness experience of the
park should not be compromised by locating these types of facilities on the
islands. If new visitor services, educational exhibits or equipment rentals are
desired, they should be located on the mainland just as the current park
visitor center is.
The
park service has done the public a disservice including such limited
alternatives in this report. It feels
like the decision has already been made on “what is best for CINP” and the
public is being steered toward accepting it.
Alt 2 and Alt 3 both contain the same amount of development. Increases
in visitor services show up as beneficial impacts in the assessment even though
they will degrade the experience existing visitors are currently seeking and
enjoying. There is no mechanism in this report to assess the impact of altering
the current self-sufficiency model of the CINP experience…yet once you can go
out to the CI and buy stuff with money the experience is fundamentally changed.
The public is not offered an alternative which addresses some of the problems
solved by Alt 2 and 3 but without the rental concession at Scorpion with
permanent housing and without the extensive development at Bechers. (I think it is a false choice, but even if I
had to pick I would rather see the buildings at Bechers deteriorate than turned
into a hotel and restaurant if that were the only way to save them.) Changes to
the mainland area of the park (visitor’s center etc.) are largely
uncontroversial but they are still only packaged up with Alt 2 and 3. The CINP
must support it’s own visitor values: “opportunities to experience peace,
pristine soundscape, natural dark, and explore an environment with few other
people present” but neither Alt2 or Alt3 do this.
I
think a fairly broad based consensus can be found among current visitors to the
CINP as follows:
- · Habitat restoration and protection of biological and archeological resources
- · Limited visitors at rustic camping facilities
- · Improvements to mainland facilities
- · No hotels, restaurants, stores or jeeps
- · Support for scientific research
We
basically want the islands left as they are except to restore damage done by
past human activities. Visitor traffic to CINP is already increasing. There is
no need for CINP to “to provide a diverse range of visitor experience
opportunities” as the plan puts it. The
CINP will be at legally mandated carrying capacity with the visitor experiences
that are currently on offer. If funding is an issue, the report should state
that right up front such as: “The CINP wants a hotel at Becher’s because we
need the money.” If this is the case,
then a real conversation needs to happen about alternative funding options.
Once this Pandora’s box gets open up, those of us who love these islands
rightly fear they will be changed forever for the worse.
