A Sustainable Paumanok Path

In Suffolk County, New York we have been very successful in “protecting” natural land for aquifer protection and recreation.  This county has protected more land than most states.  Unfortunately this vast resource must be a virtual secret if we look at the numbers of people involved in stewarding it.  The manpower afforded the managing agencies is far from adequate.  That is why we have to look to the non-profits to bolster the natural open space and trails initiatives.  It is the responsibility of the trails groups to generate the necessary support from the local communities.  If sufficient public involvement isn’t available the answer isn’t to have a small group of people trying to accomplish what many times their number couldn’t do.  It is to redouble our efforts to motivate more people to participate.  You can’t give a trail to a region; it has to grow out of its local communities and institutions.

The Paumanok Path is a logical focus for media exposure and community outreach initiatives. The Paumanok Path is an incredibly beautiful 125-mile long trail.  It is marked with white painted rectangular blazes and runs from Rocky Point in Brookhaven, through a lovely piece of Riverhead, Mannorville, Hampton Hills, Shinnecock Hills, Tuckahoe, North Sea, Noyack, Bridgehampton, Sag Harbor, Three Mile Harbor, Amagansett, Napeague and onward to the Montauk Light House. This path travels over land managed by Suffolk County Parks, Town Parks, NYS DEC, Federal Land, NYS Parks, Nature Conservancy, Peconic Land Trust and private owners. Under the direction of the land managers it is stewarded by three trails groups and an advocacy group.  The newly formed Steering Committee will be an excellent impetus for coalition amongst the groups and agencies responsible for this trail. 

The most important factor impacting the success of an initiative is the number of people actively supporting it.  The hiking groups are working to introduce the members of the local communities to the resource.  The challenge is to not only create trails into the natural wilderness, but to build paths into human hearts and minds.

Right now the Paumanok Path initiative has no where near enough capital and manpower to bring it to a level of sustainability.  Unless we effectively communicate our message to the public we will never reach this objective.   A local hero among environmentalists, Pine Barrens Society Executive Director Richard Amper points out that “No business would try to sell a product or service in the twenty-first century without an effective marketing and communications program.  It is equally difficult for non-profit community organizations to do their important work without a similar strategy.”

The fact that the trail exists so close to areas of dense population is a double-edged sword.  When the trail becomes popular it will be “loved to death” unless we develop a sustainable management plan for it now.  That is where the other edge of the sword comes into play.  Within only a few miles of the Paumanok Path we have 3 million potential stewards and an endless supply of potential corporate sponsors. 

Some trails advocates say that the path is 90% done, but that is misleading.   Much of the length of the trail is cut and the trails groups are almost able to keep the “finished” portions clear and blazed.  Unfortunately this is only a small part of the work that needs to be done to keep the Paumanok Path sustainable.  The most important maintenance issue is to conserve the extraordinarily fragile soils on which our trails are built and protect them from excessive wear and erosion. Right now we are using the trails as a consumable resource.  Several miles of trail are being ripped up and eroded every year.  A major portion of the Paumanok Path travels over sandy soil with a thin layer of living and dead organic matter holding it together.  Where the land isn’t level, disturbing this organic layer allows rainwater to rip the sand away and form ravines. Once the outer layer of the trail (tread) which is composed of leaves, small plants and roots is disturbed, the composition of the tread shifts to the almost pure sand that lies beneath much of the trail. This is hard to walk on and easily washes away.

In an Oak / Pine Forrest the undisturbed trail is a delight to tread upon.  Oak leaves and Pine needles are very woody, have a low pH and because of the sandy soil rarely sit in puddles.  They won’t decompose rapidly, and this is why they build up layer upon layer.  This is a vital component of the Pine Barren’s fire dependent ecology and this is also what gives an exhilarating bounce to the trail tread.  When The Path was first built the few people who even thought about sustainability of trail tread were of the opinion that the tread would be stabilized and renewed every Fall. Unfortunately only in a few places does this seem to be the case.
When constructing the Paumanok Path it was the policy to use existing trails wherever possible.  Some of these trails were old and had been stable for a century or more, others were boundary roads and fire breaks, large portions of which were not well engineered.  There are many miles of trail that are already badly washed away and many more miles that are at the point of breakdown. We must have workshops where we experiment with ways to stabilize these portions of trail. We need to locate, describe, list and photograph all the areas of issue along the trail.  The map we are working on will help us organize and locate the portions of trail that need to be addressed. Eagle Scouts can “shop” for projects from this list.  The trails groups will use this list to help organize their maintenance initiatives.  We can post these projects on the Internet.

Many people blame the dirt bikes, ATV’s, bicycles and horses for wearing out the trail.  This effectively takes the focus away from the fact that even if we only had foot traffic on the path, eventually maybe over decades not years, we would be confronting the same issues we are facing today.  The trail can’t take care of itself.  It is up to the hiking groups to develop an upwelling of support from the communities local to the trail, and this support must be organized into an effective management plan. 

The trail has no hope of being sustainable as long as there is motorized traffic on it. Unless this conspicuous consumption of trail ceases there is no hope for the Paumanok Path to survive as a hiking trail. 

This rapid destruction is taking away the lead-time we need to properly study and address the challenge of stabilizing the trail.

Getting motorized vehicles off the trail will help with another important issue facing the stewards of this path; the dumping of garbage.  In some places people in a “dumping state if mind” find the trail conveniently near their houses, but in other places vehicles drive up the trail to dump garbage.

We need more key people on the Paumanok Path Steering Committee, the trail groups must work together, and THE TRAIL GROUPS MUST REACH OUT, BOTH TO THEIR MEMBERS AND TO THE LOCAL COMMUNITIES.