I wish I had a flash drive for my brain where I could store all this information and remove it when I wanted a break from the issues. It would be so nice to go for a while without thinking about it. But a lot of peoples futures are at stake, including my own, and the result is that I can rarely get the subject off my mind. At least I'm not alone.
 We're under assault here by an enemy that has no issue with distorting the truth and even outright lying to achieve their goal of driving all of us from these beaches. And in spite of the claims made by those that wish us gone, there is to this day, no peer reviewed science that supports their position. None, zero, zilch, nada. Oh, they're rife with speculation..could have, may have, might possibly, perhaps, we really don't know, we think etc. is all they have ever put forth because thats all there is.
After the 2007 Interim Management Strategy was put into place, NPS began a process called Negotiated Rule making wherein, at least in theory, the "stakeholders" sit down and work out some kind of plan to manage, in this case, the Seashore. The participants were all "appointed" by the Secretary of the Interior and met for the first time in the summer of '07. Part of the deal was that the various parties to these negotiations would refrain from taking any legal action during this process. That agreement was violated in October of the same year by the Audubon Society, Defenders of Wildlife and the Southern Environmental Law Center when they filed an intent to sue (as required by law) NPS. The actual lawsuit wasn't filed until the rule making process began, a violation of their agreement. Filing an intent is not filing a lawsuit. Its like the difference between thinking about going to the store and actually doing it. NPS allowed them to continue to participate in the process none the less.
The lawsuit they filed sought an injunction which would have closed the entire seashore to all access for a period of three years. The claims they made were twofold. First, that NPS was in violation of federal law because they did not have a final rule in place to manage ORV use at the Seashore and the other being that the 2007 IMS didn't go far enough to protect wildlife.
What a joke..or would have been a joke if it hadn't landed in the court of one Judge Terrance Boyle.
You see, executive orders aren't federal law. They're basically inter-agency directives dictated from the president to somebody within the gubment. The supreme court (SCOTUS) has ruled that they may carry the weight of federal law but the constitution makes no provision for the executive to author law. Its part of the separation of powers that we all learned about in civics class back in the day.
Secondly, their claim of harm was based upon pure speculation which according to SCOTUS is not enough to grant standing in federal court. (see Lujan vs. Defenders of Wildlife 1992) You've got to be able to show real harm or "injury in fact" to be able to sue the gubment and they didn't have that ability and by admission of certain "scientists solicited recently by the Audubon Society, still cant. But Boyle granted them standing none the less.
All of this resulted in something called a consent decree or as I prefer to call it, the "Decree of Forced Consent" The "ins and outs" of this travesty of justice and its impact I'll deal with on the morrow.
This boy has to eat and read and digest an 810 page Draft Environmental Impact Statement just published by NPS. Yee Haw!

Tight Lines,

Wheat