assateague island national seashore mission statement

Over time, our vision has expanded and our membership has grown.

While our name has changed, Assateague Coastal Trust has stayed true to our founders’ legacy of fighting to protect our coastal landscape and waterscape. Fehrer led a nature walk on Assateague Island, a tradition that ACT honors to this day with our annual Ilia Fehrer & Judith Johnson Memorial Beach Walk. She battled offshore waste incineration, the building of an industrial park near Ocean City, and the needless destruction of acres of wetlands and forests. Her legacy includes Assateague Island’s state and national parks, the designation of the Pocomoke as a 'wild and scenic river,' the Nassawango Creek Preserve, and the Worcester County rural legacy area. Her tireless efforts, including testimony before Congress, were instrumental in the successful campaign to save the Island. Johnson, Ilia Fehrer was also a leading figure on the Committee to Preserve Assateague Island. The Committee fought to eliminate that provision, and the island’s pristine landscape today is a testament to its success and the crucible for ACT’s ongoing commitment to protecting our coastal environment. This is wrong,” he recalls his mother declaring. He remembers her reaction on learning of plans to “improve” the pristine barrier island with a thirty-mile highway, a 14,000-car parking lot, motels, and fast-food restaurants. Johnson began her activism at the behest of her young son, Reid, after they took a trip to Assateague together in the 1960s. In fact, her most recent position had been managing the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra where she was the first woman in the country to serve in such a role. The catalyst for the creation of this all-volunteer, grassroots group was the introduction of legislation that established Assateague Island National Seashore, including a provision that would have allowed a significant portion of the island to be developed as a resort, destroying the unspoiled beauty of the island.Īs the founding chairperson of the Committee, Judith Johnson began her campaign with little direct experience in politics or science. Coast Guard Stations Multiple Property Documentation Form (MPD).Assateague Coastal Trust (ACT) was first established as The Committee to Preserve Assateague Island. Government Lifesaving Stations, Houses of Refuge, and pre-1950 U.S. The station complex was listed in the National Register in 2015 under the U.S. It was determined eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places by the NRHP Keeper in 1980. The Assateague Beach Coast Guard Station was initially listed in the Virginia Landmarks Register in 1973. Since 2002, the NPS has not used the station regularly due to outstanding maintenance and repair needs and recurring problems accessing the location by land imposed by protections for the piping plover during its breeding season. The station was then used to house NPS visitors and for occasional interpretive and educational activities. In 1967 the Coast Guard transferred the Assateague Beach Coast Guard Station to the National Park Service, creating an NPS enclave within its holdings at the south end of Assateague Island. Duties undertaken out of this station including intercepting “rum-running” alcohol smugglers during Prohibition, and surveillance for enemy ships, submarines, and saboteurs during World War II, while also performing life- and property-saving duties. The current station was developed in 1922 by the U.S Coast Guard during the organization’s formative years and then expanded during the 1930s as part of a major effort to modernize shore stations in the early twentieth century. The 11.8-acre lifesaving station complex is sited on Fisherman’s Point at the southern end of Assateague Island, in Accomack County, on a coastal island that straddles the Virginia-Maryland border. Congress established Assateague Beach as a life-saving station in 1874 under the Life-Saving Stations Act. This interesting relic of nautical history is now part of the Assateague Island National Seashore. The station was decommissioned in 1967 and has since been transferred by the Coast Guard to the National Park Service. Established in 1922, the Assateague Beach Coast Guard Station was one of a chain of such facilities along the Atlantic coast, most of which were replaced after World War II by more efficient rescue systems.

The standard station incorporated living quarters for the lifesaving crews, a lookout tower, a boathouse-usually capable of handling two or more boats-and launchways for the speedy dispatch of crews to those in distress. Coast Guard stations operated as lifesaving posts. Welcome facilities for both seamen and holiday makers, U.S.

Assateague island national seashore mission statement