Wing Beach closed to vehicles

Beginning Friday, the government closed the Wing Beach to unauthorized vehicles, implementing the “Walk It, Don’t Drive It” campaign that aims to preserve the site, a known nesting place of turtles.

The government, through its contractors, began installing a gate to prevent vehicles from driving to the beach, as well as information signs about the campaign. The Department of Public Safety and the Emergency Management Office will hold keys to the gate should there be a need for emergency access.

Coastal Resources Management Office natural resources planner Kathy Yuknavage said the project is being facilitated through grants from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Several agencies and organizations pooled efforts to implement the project at the Wing Beach, a popular tourist and diving site.

The CRMO and the divisions of Environmental Quality and Fish and Wildlife have been campaigning against driving on the beach, citing several environmental impacts.

Driving on the beach compacts the sand and makes affects turtles’ nesting places. It also destroys vegetation, which filters runoff that flows to the sea and prevents erosion.

“When you drive on the beach, you deposit oil and gasoline on the shoreline and create ruts in the sand that destroys turtle nesting sites,” the CRMO said. It stressed that driving on the beach is illegal.

Yesterday, workers from the Department of Public Works and the Saipan Mayor’s Office were busy with the repair of the coral road to the Wing Beach access.

The DPW’s Solid Waste Management Division also contributed boulders, some of which were used to block other vehicle access to the beach.

“DLNR [Department of Land and Natural Resources] has been instrumental by providing the trees, landscaping advice, road equipment, and expertise. It has been a pleasure to work with DFW biologists who partnered with CRMO through a U.S. Fish and Wildlife grant to place information signs at the accesses and provide turtle data for measuring the success of these efforts at restoring the beach for green sea turtle nesting,” Yuknavage said.

Before the installation of the gate and the signs, volunteers cleared the area of trash and planted over 100 indigenous trees, according to Yuknavage. The volunteers included members of TREES, POWER under Mario Corpus, and students from the Northern Marianas College’s Natural Resources Management Program.

Yuknavage also said that the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service provided plant information. Sting Ray Divers and All American Divers donated pictures of green sea turtles for the information signs, she added.

“Two private landowners whose property is traversed by the present access road agreed to its continued use without request for compensation of any kind,” she said. “It was truly a pleasure to see the community take part in the public forums and selflessly give back to the community.”