CRC continues quest to reinstate Jockey’s Ridge protections

By Kip Tabb | Outer Banks Voice on October 16, 2024

 (Left to right) Craig Honeycutt, Webb Fuller, Ann-Cabell Baum and Renee Cahoon spoke at the NC Department of Environmental Quality public hearing. (Credit Kip Tabb)

By Kip Tabb | Outer Banks Voice

As the North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission (CRC) seeks to again reinstate Area of Environmental Concern (AEC) protections for Jockey’s Ridge State Park that the state’s Rules Review Commission (RRC) removed in October of last year, the North Carolina Division of Coastal Management (DCM) held a public hearing at Jockeys Ridge State Park yesterday. The CRC establishes rules for the DCM.

The RRC removed AEC protections that had been in place since 1984, calling into question, in their legal reasoning, whether Jockey’s Ridge is, in fact, a unique geological formation.

Held at the meeting room of the state park, almost 40 people were in the audience, with 17 speakers coming to the podium. Everyone who spoke asked that the AEC protections be reinstated.

Craig Honeycutt, chairman of the Friends of Jockey’s Ridge board of directors, was one of the first speakers and his comments, focusing on the park as a place of common ground that can bring people together, sounded a theme that speakers returned to repeatedly.

“I believe that Jockey’s Ridge State Park is [a] place where we find common ground in spirit and in actuality,” he said. “It is a living sand dune, a living classroom, a living playground and a living sanctuary that we all have access to together. It protects our community…and it protects us as humans by providing us a place to be inspired, energized and innocent again.”

Included in many of the remarks were childhood memories predating Jockey’s Ridge designation as a state park in 1974.

Former Nags Head commissioner Webb Fuller had, perhaps, the most visceral memories of his time on the dunes. “I remember Jockey’s Ridge as a little kid rolling down the hill and throwing up,” he recalled. “I remember Jockey’s Ridge driving a Honda 90 CC (motorbike) all over it and crashing and throwing up. And I remember sitting on the Hill throwing up beer from the [Nags Head] Casino.”

He went on to describe how important Jockey’s Ridge is to the town of Nags Head, pointing out the town seal “has three things on it.” The year the town was incorporated, 1961, a nag’s (horse’s) head, “and it has Jockeys Ridge. That’s how important this is to the town,” he said.

Ann-Cabell Baum delivered perhaps the most emotional appeal to reinstate AEC protections for the park. She recalled the August 1973 day when “three little kids were playing on the dune, and they heard bulldozers and they ran in and told their mom, and she came over to Jockey’s Ridge, and she stood in front of that bulldozer.”

It was that action by her mother, Carolista Baum, that led to the creation of Jockey’s Ridge as one of the most visited parks in the North Carolina state park system.

“She would be devastated to know that there isn’t an AEC protection in place,” she said. “This is a very special place…A very special natural resource for all of us to enjoy, and not only us, but for generations of people to enjoy, our kids, their kids.”

At the conclusion, Chair of the CRC, Renee Cahoon, was invited to speak by, the NCDCM moderator for the public hearing, Daniel Govoni.

A frequent and vocal critic of the RRC, Cahoon told the audience that the AEC protections had been “dropped without even our knowledge or consent by a…power [the RRC] to just arbitrarily set the rules. So we’re trying again for the fourth or fifth time to be adopt this.”

She called attention to the RRC’s repeated rejection of the word unique in describing the largest sand dune on the East Coast, observing, “They were arguing about the word unique for a long time, long time. They need a Webster’s Dictionary to help them.”

Renee Cahoon speaking at the NC Department of Environmental Quality public hearing. (Credit Friends of Jockey’s Ridge)

In remarks to the Voice after the hearing, Cahoon continued her criticism of the RRC, suggesting nepotism was at play, noting that the Ashley Snyder, the Codifier of the Rules for the RRC is the “President of the Senate’s daughter” and the commission has “the power of drop bills.”

The purpose of the public comment meeting, Giovani said, was to allow the DCM staff to “prepare a summary of all the comments, and…submit those to our Coastal Resources Commission their consideration at our next November (13-14) meeting on Ocean Isle Beach.”