With passage of Senate Bill 6 in September 2023, we prevented a bar/restaurant from being constructed below the Hawk Watch on an undisturbed dune. 

 

Are we done? No.  In our work, we learned that people, even those charged with managing and protecting the Park, could pursue ‘amenities’ like a bar/restaurant on a natural dune without realizing that the greatest, most irreplaceable amenity is the land itself--the dune, the beach and all the plants and animals within.

 

Threats will come and go. In 1970, the Army wanted to flatten the Great Dune and construct housing for vacationing personnel. A Cape Henlopen High School science teacher and his students showed up on the first Earth Day to block the bulldozers and raise awareness that the land could not be developed. The Great Dune remains.

 

The development of Sussex County must stop at the entrance of Cape Henlopen State Park. Join us to protect it for public recreation, conservation, and nature education…and not for private benefit.