The Hatteras Issue

I made a conscious decision when I started this blog not to drag politics in here. It’s all over the television, radio, print, and Internet. However, every so often an issue comes along that compels me to say something about it. Usually that happens when I see the issue not as politics, but as people being harmed by those with more power or money.

This brings me to the Cape Hatteras issue. Ever since I moved to North Carolina, Hatteras [as well as the Outer Banks in general] have been the battleground for a continued war between those that live there and those that want to live there. I’ll elaborate on that last statement in a moment.

Recently, I was privileged enough to watch a video told from the perspective of the hard-working, middle-class people that live and work in and around Hatteras Island [Cape Hatteras] on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It’s not a news piece, okay? It’s biased. It’s the side of the story that is often untold in the whole issue. I’d like to share that video with you here.

Look. I know some of these people way out there in Nowhere Land on the Outer Banks. I’ve been on South Core Banks camping. There’s nothing out there. No roads. No restrooms. No water or other utilities. You have to take a boat across the back bay to the barrier islands in many cases. These people, both natives and tourists, simply don’t say,

“Oooo! Look! Baby turtle. Driving over it with my car is 10 points!”

The native islanders are good, hard-working people that want to provide their niche goods and services while living a simple life on the property they own.  They are respectful of their home and their natural environment as both are inextricably woven into the thread of their mutual existence. They don’t want to pollute or kill the natural environment that they call home. To say otherwise would be misleading and false. It would also conjure up imagery of normal people living the same lifestyle walking onto their backyard with 10 gallons of gasoline and dumping it right next to their drinking water supply well.

Please watch this two part video, titled Piping Mad, embedded below.  It was filmed and produced by Hark Productions in conjunction with The Greystone Project.

So here we are.  Now Kim eluded to something, and that should be the take-away from this.  I happen to see the strategic ends anymore when politics becomes infused in an issue.  The environment and the Piping Plover are just the tools.  Unless something is done, I predict right here and now that in 25 years there will be nothing but multi-million dollar mansions dotting the Outer Banks like little private kingdoms.  I doubt the Little People will be allowed to visit, and I doubt even more that the owners of those slices of private paradise will give one thought to the Piping Plover.