The Trustees of Reservations is challenging Edgartown’s limits on oversand vehicle access on Chappaquiddick and is asking the state to impose new rules for the miles of trails on the small island. 

The Trustees Friday filed an appeal with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, seeking a supersing order after the Edgartown Conservation Commission earlier this month set a cap on the number of vehicles allowed to drive on the sand trails, as well as close access past the Cape Pogue lighthouse to an area known as the Gut.

“The Commission’s orders for Cape Poge categorically remove 30 acres of Trustees property from access by the public, including noted fishing areas at the Gut, and severely limited the number of [oversand vehicles] in areas that, historically and according to state guidelines, accommodate significantly more visitors than the Commission has allowed,” the Trustees said in a statement Friday. 

On May 15, the Edgartown conservation commission voted unanimously to set the new regulations, the result of months of meetings and contentious back and forth between the land nonprofit, Chappaquiddick residents, and beachgoers seeking access to the prized shoreline. 

No more than 200 vehicles could drive out to Wasque and Leland and no more than 30 vehicles were allowed on the Cape Pogue trails. 

The DEP can override local conservation commissions if their rulings don’t fall in line with state laws. Kate Theoharides, the president and CEO of the Trustees, previously publicly lambasted the conservation commission limits, saying they were designed to appease Chappaquiddick landowners and weren’t rooted in the state Wetlands Protection Act. 

In paperwork filed with the DEP, the Trustees also objected to the commission’s order to potentially install gates along Cape Pogue Elbow and the Gut and hold monthly meetings to talk about operations. 

“The orders impose an onerous, burdensome monthly reporting requirement that is not mandatory to meet any performance standard of the Wetlands Protection Act regulations and would not trigger any action,” the Trustees wrote. “No other land trust on Martha’s Vineyard is subjected to a monthly reporting requirement.” 

The Trustees had requested that it be allowed to have up to 300 vehicles across all of its trails. The commission instead choose to have two limits, one for Cape Pogue and another for Leland and Wasque. 

The Trustees said this bifurcated limit was not needed and reiterated the request for 300 oversand vehicles in total across all properties in its appeal to the DEP.

Conservation commission member Geoff Kontje helped draft the regulations and did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

A spokesperson for the Trustees declined to comment further than the statement released by the nonprofit, which manages properties across the Island and Massachusetts. 

Applicants have to appeal commission orders within 10 business days. The conservation commission officially signed off on the new limits on May 20 and the appeal period ends on June 4. 

During the hearings the commission made a point to allow the existing regulations to remain intact until any appeal ended. Beachgoers sought this provision in case the new limits were appealed after the old ones expired – leaving no permission for oversand vehicles. 

Peter Sliwkoski, the president of the Martha’s Vineyard Beachgoers Access Group, said this was crucial.

“The current order of condition which allows access from Leland’s to the Town Jetty will be in place until the new order of conditions are filed and not appealed,” he said earlier this month after the conservation commission’s vote. “This means, we will have at least the same access we had last year.”