Five motorists who headed off into an area of Padre Island National Seashore in Texas that was off-limits to vehicles and drove around the tidal flats there have agreed, along with their insurance agencies, to pay more than $150,000 in damages to the park.

The five headed into the restricted area back in July 2011 and caused extensive damage to the tidal flats, according to Chief Ranger Travis Poulson. With the assistance of the Department of Interior’s Solicitor’s Office, the National Park Service submitted claims for costs and damages under the Park System Resource Protection Act to each of the five drivers and their insurance companies.  The act provides that any person or instrumentality who injures, destroys or causes the loss of any park system resource is liable for response costs and damages.

Earlier this month the five and their insurance companies have agreed to pay more than $150,000 in costs and damages to the NPS in out-of-court settlements, the chief ranger reported.

Wind-tidal flats are a very limited and specialized environment, existing within a few centimeters of sea level.  Wind-tidal flats such as those in Padre Island support large blue-green algal mats, which host the most productive and diverse benthic communities in the Laguna Madre.  This nutrient-rich environment is an important winter and migration foraging habitat for shorebirds, including the federally threatened piping plover and the highly imperiled red knot. 

The five drivers in this incident created over two miles of vehicle tracks, destroying two acres of algal mats and impacting an additional 11 acres by changing the natural hydrology of the site.  The tracks broke through the algal mat crust, sinking as much as 18 inches into the ground. The displaced sediment formed ridges along the outer edges of the tracks.  These deep ruts not only destroyed the algal mat within the tracks, but also disrupted the natural surface hydrology or flow of water across the flat, impacting the algal mats over a much larger area.

Seashore officials plan to use the settlement monies to restore the injured area, including re-grading the tracks by hand, thereby restoring the natural hydrology and monitoring the return of the area to its natural state.