Showing little faith in the National Park Service's ability to conduct sound science at Point Reyes National Seashore, Congress has inserted language into an appropriations bill that calls for the National Academy of Sciences to evaluate the agency's science into the impacts of an oyster farm operating within the seashore.
The battle over the future of the Drakes Bay Oyster Co. has been ongoing for a number of years. When the company's owner, Kevin Lunny, bought the operation from the Johnson Oyster Co. in 2005, it came with a 40-year lease that expires in November 2012. And since the oyster farm is located in an area of the seashore, Drakes Estero, that has been targeted for official wilderness designation, his ability to gain a lease extension has been impeded.
At issue is whether the oyster farm is adversely impacting Drakes Estero and its marinelife, particularly harbor seals. The estero long has been viewed for designation as official wilderness -- the 1976 legislation that set aside 25,370 acres of the seashore as wilderness cited another 8,003 acres that would be "essentially managed as wilderness, to the extent possible, with efforts to steadily continue to remove all obstacles to the eventual conversion of these lands and waters to wilderness status" -- and the oyster operation is seen as being incompatible with such a designation.
The Park Service's handling of the oyster company's future has been both contentious and embarassing for the agency. While a Park Service report on the oyster operation concluded that it was impacting harbor seals, the report at times has withered under scrutiny. In 2009 the National Research Council said the NPS report was skewed, "selectively" manipulated in several areas, and inconclusive overall.
When a House-Senate conference committee met last week to resolve differences in the appropriations bill that funds the Interior Department, the conferees added language stating, "(B)ecause of concerns relating to the validity of the science underlying the (draft Environmental Impact Statement), the conferees direct the National Academy of Sciences to assess the data, analysis, and conclusions in the DEIS in order to ensure there is a solid scientific foundation for the Final Environmental Impact Statement expected in mid-2012."
Last month the federal Marine Mammals Commission weighed in with its own report on the studies revolving around the oyster farm. While the commission found that seal behavior at Drakes Estero was "at least correlated" with operations of the Drakes Bay Oyster Co., it also said more research is needed to determine a "cause and effect."
Perhaps more importantly, the 70-page report said there's no solid evidence as to how disturbances to the seals affects them biologically.
Meanwhile, the House Oversight Committee under the direction of U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., continues to pore through reams of Park Service documents to determine whether the agency "knowingly relied on flawed science" in previously opposing the oyster company's continued operation in the seashore.
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It should be obvious that this issue at DB has threads throughout todays NPS way of operating. There are examples of either eliminating or "Nationalizing" private Inholdings (one way or another) accross the Parks System. Making museums or interp opportunities out of living cultural centers or operations. It shouldn't be any secret either that many in NPS feel that private enterprise outside of donations and government funding just isn't worthy of consideration. Sounds elitest to me. I said many, not all. Drakes Bay Oyster Company is just fine with me.
Thanks for the link, y_p_w. That quote is classic Kevin. Nothing's a problem for those who can fake sincerity; but for those who care about more than just our own sweet feast on public charity:
Polyploidy is ubiquitous in plants, and found in some animal tissues like mammalian liver cells. Such genetic anomalies are ancient and can arise sponateously in plants, but this is not the case in animals. It was, in fact, a 1987 ruling on triploid Pacific oysters which 1st opened the path to patenting multicellular organisms. The immense profit potential of continually selling 'licensed' seed now drives the international market for 'sterile' Pacific Oyster cultivation.
Trying to marginalize the significance of the global genetic collapse of wild shellfish, and 'mortality crises' from multiple pathogens on several continents, which "coincides" with the unprecedented monoculture of this genetically engineered exotic, is a disservice to all - except shellfish industry PR-lobbyists. Are you one?
Pacific Oysters are recognized as one of the 100 worst invasives. 4.7 billion metric tons are produced annually, worldwide. Even in tiny Marin county, DBOC's 1/2million pounds accounts for only about 1/60th of local agricultural production value. They puff up their importance locally, to mask their true role as a wedge issue for anti-regulatory cartels. Money pours in from BigAg, BioPharma, and the drill-baby-drill vultures always hovering over the CA coast.
FYI: organic is still the holy grail in West Marin - check DBOC's promoters - ALSA, MarinOrganic, etc. Don't tell them CropLife helped fix Feinstein's corrupt rider to the DOI's appropriations bill - special mandate for special interest on the QT - Kevin's their poster-boy.
Of interest only to the fact-based: This entire fiasco would have remained a local land-use tantrum, if not for the Marin County Board of Supervisor's desperate attempt to get DBOC into legal compliance with its permits. In their 8May2007 hearing, they specified repeatedly that their intent in asking for Feinstein's help, was to try to finally get DBOC to operate within the law UNTIL the end of their 'lease' in 2012! BTW: DBOC has not been in compliance for 1 single day since the 2004 purchase for $275,000. A million dollars a year for 7 years, not too bad an investment; but enough is never enough; that's true entitlement.
Last correction:
This phrase is typical of DBOC's PR-style. Old Man Johnson's oyster farm began in 1957. The very 1st oysters in Drakes Estero were introduced by the CA DF&G ~1932. The original water bottom lease ~1934, was to a big corporate owner with a long-gone facility at an entirely different location. By the time DBOC took over, the oysters were being trucked to Santa Rosa for processing. He chose to bring it back when he bootlegged in as much as 'development' as possible before he was 'red-tagged'.
You might consider saving your sympathy, and righteous outlaw spite "agin the guv'mint", for a more authentic target. Or not.