Drakes Bay Oyster Co. will have to leave Point Reyes.

"I am extremely disappointed that Secretary Salazar chose not to renew the operating permit for the Drakes Bay Oyster Company," Feinstein said. "The National Park Service's review process has been flawed from the beginning with false and misleading science, which was also used in the environmental impact statement."

The decision also ensures that, in keeping with the historic use of the land, existing sustainable ranching operations within the national park will continue, Salazar said.

He directed the National Park Service to pursue extending the terms of agriculture permits from 10 years to 20 years to provide greater certainty and clarity for the ranches operating within the national park's pastoral zone and to support the continued presence of sustainable ranching and dairy operations.

“This has been a very challenging issue, but I have great respect for the decision made by Secretary Salazar to allow this permit to expire at the end of its term. He studied the issue carefully, he listened closely to all sides and, in the end, he made his decision based on the science and the law.”

Times change....a lot of old industries are no longer viable. Most ranching on marginal land in the West is a losing proposition. The sheep ranchers in Patagonia are fast disappearing....forget the nostalgia, in a lot of these cases the environment is the winner.

what part of this being a "National Park" are you naysayers unclear about? These should be (but arent) non commercial public use areas. Keep your profiteering on private land.

what part of this being a "National Park" are you naysayers unclear about? These should be (but arent) non commercial public use areas. Keep your profiteering on private land. And yea I think the DNC should get evicted from Yosemite too, and the park run as a nonprofit.

Reading comprehension bluering....work on it...meh.

I f*#king hate do-gooders....

Jesus was a do gooder.. LOL

I live and grew up in West Marin and have eaten the oysters almost since the beginning. It's a tough choice....The bay is a beautifully intact model of what the small bays and lagoons of California were like before most all of them were permanently altered for the worse. You have to remember that major plans for development were to take place before the advent of the park. Everyone likes to bag on the park but it would have been a developed nightmare where no-one would want to be. Think Seadrift in Stinson Beach to get an idea (and where Diane Feinstien has a house)of what would have happened there. There were houses built on Limantour spit behind a locked gate (you can still see evidence of them) which was the start of what would have been a Seadrift like sub-division,that were torn down when the park was instituted. Drakes Estero is arguably the most pristine estuary on the coast. True, the oysters were good but I think in this case, it's for the best. If it weren't for the fact that there are oysters grown in Tomales Bay, it would have been harder to do. Go and kayak on the Estero sometime and decide for yourself.

Edit: No bluering...Wont happen On Tomales Bay. That's the trade off. Tomales Bay is developed. And I know many of the oyster folk there and am glad they are still in business. But two very different areas.

When hippies start tweaking the systems, you can create an odd balance

Dude, the irony in your statement is so thick it's uncanny.

The hippies mostly want the Earth to stay like your God supposedly created it.

Without the hippies, there would be no balance. Your God's beautiful creation would be in ruins.

Hippies can f*#k off!

By Richard White

November 27, 2012

If you want to know why environmentalism has so little political traction these days, you need to go no further than Point Reyes, Calif. The beautiful Point Reyes National Seashore just north of San Francisco may be the most interesting national parkland in the country. It combines designated wilderness with operating ranches and dairy farms, and it is now embroiled in an utterly manufactured controversy.

At the center of the dispute is Drakes Bay Oyster Co., which operates on Drakes Estero, a spectacular and ecologically significant estuary located in an area that has been federally designated as wilderness. Drakes is successor to Johnson Oyster Co., which the National Park Service (thanks to American taxpayers) bought out in 1972. At that time, the government granted the company a lease to continue operations for 40 years. In 2004, the Johnsons sold their oyster operation to the Lunny family, with full disclosure that on Nov. 30, 2012, the lease would expire.

Under the provisions of both the Wilderness Act of 1964 and the Point Reyes Wilderness Act of 1976, neither the National Park Service nor the secretary of the Interior should have any discretion over what happens to Drakes Estero after the lease runs out. At that point, the law dictates, it is to be managed as wilderness, a designation affording the highest level of protection from intrusive human activity. But that hasn't stopped an array of politicians and politically connected Bay Area residents from pushing for an extension of the lease.

What might seem like a local dispute has far-reaching consequences for the ability of the National Park Service to stop resource grabs and allow policy and science, rather than well-placed political donors, to inform decision-making.

The issue has divided interest groups that usually are of like mind. On one side are liberal Democrats (aided by Sen. Dianne Feinstein) who promote local and organic foods. They think businesses like the oyster company should be encouraged. On the other side are liberal Democrats who advocate on behalf of wilderness and public access to parks. But only one side has the law on its side, and it's hard to imagine why a liberal Democratic senator with a strong environmental record is seeking special privileges to help a favored constituent subvert the Wilderness Act.

In politics, as in so many things, it is not the facts or the law but the story that matters. When Feinstein tells the story of Drakes Estero, she portrays it as a case of the National Park Service overreaching to shut down a family-run oyster farm. But her story doesn't mention that the Lunny family purchased the company in 2004 knowing what the future held, or that they signed a special use permit in 2008 that specifically stated that commercial shellfish operations would be allowed only through November 2012.

Both sides have tried to cite science to bolster their cases. Initially, supporters of the oyster farm came in with carefully selected evidence that oyster farming helps the environment. When a National Park Service study concluded otherwise, it was attacked, and the National Academy of Science was asked to review whether the study was biased against the Lunnys. It found no evidence of scientific misconduct, but beyond that it was equivocal about what degree of impact the oyster company had on the environment. Later, a Marine Mammal Commission study confirmed that the oyster company operations do disturb harbor seals, a significant finding because Drakes Estero is one of the largest mainland breeding populations of harbor seals in California.

The scientific back and forth was to be expected, but Feinstein used it to attack the National Park Service. She introduced legislation, eventually signed into law, that subverted the Wilderness Act by granting the secretary of the Interior — currently Ken Salazar — power to extend the lease for the oyster farm. Salazar ordered an environmental impact statement, which generated 52,000 public comments, the overwhelming majority of which favored letting the oyster farm lease expire and making Drakes Estero wilderness. The report concluded that not extending the lease was most consistent with law, policy and science, and that the land should become wilderness.

Now it is up to Salazar. He has the environmental impact statement, the public comments and long-standing park policy guidelines to inform his decision about a lease that ends this week. He also has the stubborn demand for a new lease from a powerful Democratic senator. But it shouldn't be a tough call. The Wilderness Act is clear about the reasons for designating certain areas as wilderness and about exactly what that means.

For years, I taught classes using the park as a laboratory because of its unique and successful experiment in combining ranching, dairy farming and wilderness. I once wrote an essay called "Are You an Environmentalist or Do You Work for a Living?," which criticized the environmental movement for missing the ways that people understand nature through work. So I am hardly an automatic advocate of wilderness.

But I also think that protecting designated wilderness is crucial, and that people need to play by the rules. Everyone involved in this saga knew what the agreement entailed and that the oyster farming was to end. That agreement shouldn't be subverted by special interests with friends in high places.

Richard White is a professor of history at Stanford University and the author, most recently, of "Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America."

Copyright © 2012, Los Angeles Times

I realize all of that. I don't really feel so sorry for the owners but I
do feel for the working slobs, especially in this economy. I also fail to
see how it would have hurt anything to give them an extension. How is
oyster farming more harmful than the grazing they currently allow? Seems
like cherry picking or spitefullness especially after Salazar's visit a
while back when he played the hail fellow well met at the oyster farm.

How is oyster farming more harmful than the grazing they currently allow?

Non-native oysters and a long history of poor operations and debris pollution by the prior owner. It's a fair call.

Alright, tree-hugger, does this mean we can start pumping water to Central Valley farms again and tell the Delta Smelt to "f*#k off"???? Also a non-indigenous species.

Can we? Asshole!

A lot of people have lost farms because of that little f*#king fish! Drive though there sometime and you'll see some angry signs. "Gov't caused this dustbowl"

Well we know where you stand, but fortunately the regulations differ from that.

"LET THEM EAT CLAMS"

"be sure to have a 10 foot rope on the front and back of your boat."

"Iceland has launched an investigation into the mass death of tens of thousands of wild herring. One newspaper estimated the value of the dead fish to be almost $10 million. This is the second such occurrence in Iceland’s Kolgrafafjordur fjord this winter, raising concerns about the country’s fisheries. Johann Sigurjonsson, director of Iceland's Marine Research Institute, believes that roughly an entire season’s worth of herring has been lost.

Researchers believe that low oxygen levels in the fjord, a result of overcrowding by the herring, may have caused the deaths. Government funding has been diverted toward monitoring the fisheries to determine what can be done to prevent more mass deaths.

Fortunately, we can take solace knowing that the fish will not have died in vain. Volunteers are already collecting the dead fish, which can be turned into feed for animals, and revenue from the sale will be donated to local schools."

Has that son a of a bitch, Salazar, or anybody, seen Drake's Bay?

Couch: Not just what caused it, but why wasn't the cause seen in advance? The brightest minds are only guessing at this time.

I have a hard time being on the side of the NPS on this one. This company has operated for decades and folks are used to it being there. Provides jobs which should not be marginalized for the real importance they are.

Does not seem to be any indication of serious negative environmental impact or enjoyment of the area for recreation.

What is the point of closing it?

In the end I could care less about the politics of the issue. The only thing that matters to me is that this is a proven sustainable low impact industry that provides a living for real people without hurting other uses.

Win win for everything.. what more could you ask for? Politicians are supposed work for us and our interests ie to look for and support exactly these type of setups.

According to the New York Times, "Oyster Farmer Caught Up in Pipeline Politics", the Drake's Bay cause has now been tucked onto a Republican Energy bill and tied to the Keystone pipeline.

Got any other broken records???

DMT

Why speculate as to how their holiday was?

Why doesn't the fork-tongued Park Service do anything to stop the Navy from using SEKI as their China Lake adjunct?

As for the empty lot becoming a trash depository, I highly doubt it. Sounds like you dont know the area very well. Lets wait and see.

"imagine what Drake saw when he arrived. "

It's wonderful to hike near the estero and imagine what Drake saw when he arrived.