WhatYouCanDoSubmit your comments by Tue., Nov. 29. Support Alternative A–”no action”.Comment on-line at http://parkplanning.nps.gov/document.cfm?parkID=333&projectID=33043&documentID=43390. You may also mail or hand-deliver comments to: There will also be public meetings at which you can support wilderness and comment: Tuesday, October 18, 6 – 8 pm Wednesday, October 19, 6 – 8 pm Thursday, October 20, 6 – 8 pm |
Update (June 27, 2002): see also an extensive article in the June 27 East Bay Express.
Will Drakes Estero in Point Reyes National Seashore become wilderness as Congress has instructed, or will it continue to house a commercial operation (see September-October 2010, page 4)?
The site was designated as future wilderness by the Point Reyes Wilderness Act in 1976. The wilderness designation was scheduled to take effect in November 2012, when the existing commercial oyster-farming lease expires. The current leaseholder, though, has asked for a new lease, and the National Park Service has issued a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on this proposal. The EIS explores four alternatives, but expresses no preference among them. The Sierra Club strongly supports Alternative A (“no action”), the only one that will allow the lease to expire and Drakes Estero to become part of the existing Phillip Burton Wilderness as the law states. To extend the operation of a business on lands that Congress has designated to become wilderness would set a threatening precedent for the entire federal wilderness system from coast to coast.
Drakes Estero would be the only estuary along the West Coast designated as wilderness. The Estero and its watershed are home to several endangered plants and animals, and serve as important bird habitat. The Estero also contains an extremely important harbor-seal population.
The Phillip Burton Wilderness at Point Reyes is the closest wilderness to the San Francisco Bay Area.
The commercial concessionaire of the oyster farm bought the lease six years ago with full knowledge of the lease expiration.
Alan Carlton, chair, Sierra Club California/Nevada Conservation Committee
I’m new to the Bay area and still learning about the issues impacting our community. Please help me understand this one.
I understand your point and I understand the importance of Wilderness with a big “W,” but I just checked out the website for this oyster farm, and it seems to me that they are doing some good work.
They are engaged in sustainable and organic agriculture and aquaculture. They have the support of Monterey Bay Aquarium and Marin Organic. And of course, they provide local jobs and help the local economy. These guys aren’t Chevron or Sierra Pacific.
I know I don’t know the whole story. Can you provide me with some more details? Reading this article makes Drakes Estero sound like a bunch of bad guys, and I’m not feeling like they are bad guys.
Sorry, I meant Drakes Bay.
Please check your facts about the DBOC lease extension before repeating the last sentence of this article. While it is literally true that the current lease, as signed six years ago, expires next year. Mr Lunny could not and would not sign a lease until the Park added an extension clause to it, and they did. Doesn’t mean he gets the extension, just that an extension is possible.
The Lunnys have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in environmental remediation and, as the only completely organic ranchers on the Point, have been exemplary stewards of land and water in and around Drakes Estero …. for generations.
These are not scofflaws, nor, as they have been called, are they “criminals.” They are hardworking honorable people who deserve reasonable consideration from the National Park Service AND the Sierra Club.
To check on Rikki Jensen’s and Mark Dowie’s questions, I suggest these links:
This Jan.2005 report from the Point Reyes Light shows Kevin Lunny’s original intents. It’s no longer available locally, but extiguishing inconvenient truths from the internet is not foolproof. http://www.seafood-norway.com/showAtomic.asp?c=2356
Here’s the SF Chronicle’s take on the ‘skewed data’ and ‘operating without a permit’ issue from 2008 http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2008/07/24/MND011U5VN.DTL
Regarding DBOC as scofflaw or no, here are two CA Coastal Commission citations, 2009 & 2011:
http://www.nationalparkstraveler.com/files/California%20Coastal%20Commission%2012-09%20letter.pdf
http://www.nationalparkstraveler.com/files/California%20Coastal%20Commission-Drakes%20Bay.pdf
Here’s some ‘science challenge’ background from the West Marin Citizen as the Marine Mammal Commission entered the fray in 2010: http://wmarinpilot.info/page17.htm
Near the end, this NorthBay Business piece gives insight into the big-PR factor helping DBOC’s spin: http://www.northbaybiz.com/General_Articles/General_Articles/Something_Smells_Fishy.php
For the comprehensive rundown of complaints about ‘false science’ and ‘persecution’, see the Office of the Solicitor in March 2011: http://www.doi.gov/news/pressreleases/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile&PageID=238859
And finally, for an eye-opener about how and why Senator Feinstein strongarmed the backdoor policy change, as a tiny rider in a huge appropriations bill for the Dept. of the Interior (she’s the chair), and the significance of her using the NRC as a political tool for favored donors, see this case study by the editor-in-chief of the CA Law Review (after the Intro, skip to page 29 for the Point Reyes section): http://www.californialawreview.org/assets/pdfs/99-2/11-Fein.pdf
BTW: Why is there so much fudging of facts about how long oysters have been in Drakes Estero? Sustainable is just a word, if it’s not backed by accountability. Shellfish carry potential risks, like toxins/heavy metals, genetic inbreeding, mysterious die-offs of seed and maturing production, and serious environmental impacts widely recognized in the industry. (check Pacific Shellfish Growers seed crisis research, French oyster crisis 2008, and Humboldt Bay’s Coast Seafood’s complete overhaul, footprint reduction to 300acres, and $100,000 support to CA Coastal Conservancy for remediation http://documents.coastal.ca.gov/reports/2006/5/Th5a-5-2006.pdf)
Attibutes like ‘stewardship’ mean transparent intent, taking responsibility for actions, and giving accurate, reliable information to customers. Building trust is not compatible with commercially appealing but historically distorted self-promotion.
For instance, descendants of the original inhabitants have tried to get DBOC to correct their misleading self description, but to no avail. Miwoks never cultivated oysters. They were hunter-gatherers who took only what was immediately needed. Commercial agriculturalists are driven by profit to increase yield and reduce costs. Historically, many honorable, hardworking people have been stranded on remote farms, having claimed as much cheap gov’t acreage as they can, yet still get stuck with an ailing bottom line. But a deal is a deal. Huge numbers of us have family who’ve lost farms. Food insecurity is not for lack of production, it’s a poverty/greed problem. There are 4.7 Billion Metric Tons of oysters produced worldwide! DBOC is not critical to anyone’s protein count.
Also, why is it so hard to admit when oysters were first put into Drakes Estero? It wasn’t ‘shortly after 1875′, or ‘early in the 20th century’, or ‘the 1920s.’ Unlike Tomales Bay, it was the CDFG that initiated the first, experimental non-native plantings of oysters in Drakes Estero, in 1932. That was when the Marin Conservation League’s first land purchase for parkland began. Conservation actually has a much stronger legacy in West Marin than oystering.
(See: http://www.savedrakesbay.org/uploads/History_report_NPS_response_to_NAS.pdf and http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=kt629004n3&brand=calisphere&doc.view=entire_text)
Welcome, Rikki, and thanks for caring enough to seek information before forming conclusions.