Pave Paradise And Put Up a Parking Lot?

Insight on the News, Sept 2, 2003 by John Elvin

Byline: John Elvin, INSIGHT

Pave Paradise And Put Up a Parking Lot?

In the last edition of nation in brief there was a bit of a rant about how the National Park Service should just unload its unprofitable properties, and that it was fine and dandy that it was solving budget problems by peddling bits and pieces of history to tourists. As always, there's another side to the story. Meet Jay Cherrix, whose heritage is one of love and respect for an Atlantic barrier island that has changed only as nature brought changes. He wants to keep it that way.

Cherrix, the son of a Chincoteague Island, Va., waterman, traces his roots back 300 years on the island. "They were shipwrights and watermen, independent souls who raised families here by their own hard work," he says. Cherrix makes his living in that same tradition but with a modern twist. He's a sea kayaker and leads expeditions on visits to the flat water along the shoreline of what he terms one of the last remaining natural areas on the East Coast Assateague Island, which is partly in Maryland and partly in Virginia.

Cherrix also heads up Citizens for the Preservation of Assateague, a group at odds with Park Service goals for the island. "We oppose development of any sort," says Cherrix, interviewed at his headquarters on Chincoteague Island, the seasonally busy beach town in Virginia adjacent to Assateague.

In the course of filings with the Park Service under the Freedom of Information Act, he's uncovered some interesting material, though the material denied to him also is intriguing. One memo he provided to nation in brief involves three senior Park Service officials and refers to his requests as "outrageous" and asks if there is some way to slow Cherrix down, "some kind of harassment mitigation." It asks if there is anything in his requests, which generally were brushed aside, "that we could use to leverage Mr. Cherrix."

Leverage? Sounds like a wink-wink term for "shut this S.O.B. up." Visiting the Assateague Island National Seashore and the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, though, you do have to wonder how many tourists really care about the wild side of the island. They pay their $10 and head for the beach. Once off the beaten path, it's rare to encounter another human. In a 12-mile hike into the refuge, your correspondent counted about 10 people. Six of them, oddly enough, were young Amish or Mennonite women in long gray dresses and sunbonnets. Maybe that's not so odd, since their religion teaches that they should avoid the temptations of the modern world. There aren't any out there among the wild geese, small sika deer, ponies and other wildlife on the island. It's a paradise, not just for those who love walking and observing but also for the sportsmen, the fishers and hunters.

Meanwhile, the beach parking area is packed. There must be several thousand vehicles, many of them big sport-utility vehicles disgorging herds of kids. It's hard to imagine that the majority of visitors wouldn't be just as happy if Assateague is turned into another Ocean City or Cape May, weighted down with boardwalks, bed and breakfasts, fast-food dispensaries and novelty shops specializing in garish T-shirts.

But none of that can happen if existing covenants hold up. At most, from the look of Park Service plans, there will be a big visitor center and some campsites. The Park Service Website boasts of environmental sensitivity, and how construction is done with soy husks and plastics.

And that's too much for Cherrix, who sees any development as a first step in the wrong direction. "Yes, it's protected. But it's a developer's dream and we have to be vigilant. There's supposed to be no development, period. It's a refuge," he points out, as though he's describing a little bit of Eden.

Maybe he is. Assateague, with 37 miles of mostly tourist-free wild beaches, is home to a variety of wildlife, including more than 250 species of birds, but it is most famous for its wild ponies. In legend they arrived as survivors of a Spanish shipwreck, though the reality seems to be that they were stowed on the remote island by settlers avoiding a livestock tax. Over the years the herd has been built up through introduction of various breeds hardy enough to survive in a harsh environment on a diet of mainly salt grass.

The herd at the Chincoteague end of the island belongs to the local volunteer fire department. An annual summer roundup and auction attracts attention nationally and even internationally as saltwater cowboys drive the herd off Assateague to swim across to nearby Chincoteague and the auction pen. The foals are sold off as pets and the rest are then turned back to their wild range.

As Cherrix talks to you, half the time he's looking you right in the eye, reading your reactions. The other half, he's looking off at things you can't see, at big grassy sand dunes and drift-strewn beaches, at ponies running wild and free and at storms and raging water that have reshaped Assateague time and time again, foiling every development attempt.