The veteran judge, overseeing the case of a Virginia man accused of careless driving near the Bodie Island spit on the Outer Banks, judicially noted that under federal law, off-road vehicles are barred from 70 miles of sand at the Cape Hatteras National Seashore until a formal management plan for the vehicles has been put into effect.

That's quite a finding. For decades, Bankers and surf fishermen from all over have used the beach as boulevard and parking lot. The anglers pull up in their four-wheel-drives to front-row seats on some of the best fishing around. They pack big rods and reels and ice-loaded coolers, and they don't want to walk all that way.

With some judicious compromising, they won't have to.

First off, Judge Boyle's opinion, although ultimately good news for wildlife and the beach, won't have the immediate effect its own language might suggest. The judge did not directly order the National Park Service, which oversees the national seashore, to close off beach access. For now, with the exception of existing wildlife- and safety-related closures, off-road vehicles, known as ORVs, remain free to use the beach.

Making way for wildlife

In the longer term, though, birds such as the piping plover, least tern and American oystercatcher, along with sea turtles, could gain some well-deserved breathing space on their native sand.

They can use it. Testimony at the trial, Boyle wrote, established that the Park Service had counted "approximately 1,200 vehicles located in the over-wash area" on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. All this in a "narrow, fragile, environmentally sensitive area." Conservation groups have rightly complained that some ORVs intrude into fragile nesting areas. And there are, naturally, those thoughtless drivers whose recklessness endangers both wildlife and people.

When it comes to ORVs, federal law requires parks to designate specific trails and areas, and to mark the trails clearly. Yet after years of talk the Park Service still does not have final regulations to govern vehicles at the immensely popular national seashore, which extends some 80 miles from South Nags Head to Ocracoke. And, the judge logically declared, "Where the Park Service fails to create a plan for ORV use, off-road vehicles are prohibited."

Strategies for sharing

Why no formal plan yet? Although it has taken interim steps toward traffic control, the Park Service has been stymied by the complaints of beachgoing motorists who lament any loss of sand-driving freedom and who, above all, don't want to be cut off from their favorite fishing spots.

Some of that opposition has been measured and rational; some vitriolic or worse. But by allowing ORV access into environmentally sensitive areas despite the lack of a final management plan, the Parks Service has countenanced an evident violation of federal law.

Now, with Judge Boyle using a small-potatoes case to spur them on, all parties should drive for a solution.

It shouldn't be that hard. Despite the occasional hot-headed anti-bird comment from anglers, nearly all fishermen are nature-lovers at heart. They're not at all keen on running over a plover, and they know that some areas will have to be off limits. Environmentalists, for their part, seem reconciled to the area's long history of motorized access, and most don't seek to ban the beach buggy.

It's a matter of finding the right routes and developing sensible restrictions -- and, above all, of realizing that North Carolina's beloved beaches can be loved to death. The process for establishing a final plan is in place; it's time to shift into high gear.

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