Some environmental heavyweights -- E.O. Wilson, Jean-Michel Cousteau, Sylvia A. Earle, Thomas E. Lovejoy, and Tundi Agardy -- have urged Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to see that an oyster farm is removed from Point Reyes National Seashore when its lease ends this fall.
Their letter, released Thursday by the National Park Service's Washington office, comes as Point Reyes officials are crafting a final environmental impact statement examining the impacts of the Drakes Bay Oyster Co. on Drakes Estero.
"You are now in a position to protect the only marine wilderness area on the West Coast for the benefit of the public and generations to come," reads a portion of the letter. "This policy decision does not require Congressional or Presidential approval, providing you with a unique opportunity for a significant conservation victory in today’s challenging political climate. We urge you to please seize this significant opportunity."
The oyster company's 40-year lease runs out in November, and Congress long ago said the estero should be designated as official wilderness once all non-conforming uses are removed from it. The 1976 legislation that set aside 25,370 acres of the seashore as wilderness cited another 8,003 acres encompassing the estero 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 draft EIS was released for public review back in December, and the final EIS is expected later this summer.
The interest in the fate of an oyster company that produces between 450,000-500,000 pounds of Pacific oyster meat a year for Bay Area outlets has been fanned by both U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, an ardent supporter of the oyster company and its small workforce, and environmentalists and conservationists who want to see the estero granted official wilderness designation.
The letter from Professor Wilson, Mr. Cousteau, Dr. Earle, Dr. Lovejoy, and Dr. Agardy is below in its entirety.
Dear Secretary Salazar:
We are writing to you about a policy decision you will be making regarding the protection of the only marine Wilderness area on the West Coast: Drakes Estero in Point Reyes National Seashore. We urge you to protect this critically valuable estuary as long intended by the public and Congress.
When Drakes Estero was designated as a Wilderness Area in 1976, Congress allowed the existing oyster farming business to continue until its operating rights expired in 2012. This compromise meant the public would have to wait nearly 40 years for Drakes Estero to receive the conservation protections afforded by wilderness designation. For years, the leasing deal has been honored by the people of the country despite growing awareness of the immense benefits derived from protecting natural areas like the Estero.
You are now in a position to protect the only marine wilderness area on the West Coast for the benefit of the public and generations to come. This policy decision does not require Congressional or Presidential approval, providing you with a unique opportunity for a significant conservation victory in today’s challenging political climate. We urge you to please seize this significant opportunity.
The new owners of the company understood the terms of the lease when they acquired the business from the original owners in 2005, and now seek a new permit to continue private use of this public resource. Granting a new permit would be poor public policy and weaken the integrity of the Wilderness Act. We urge you not to do this.
Drakes Estero can be restored to its natural beauty and biological productivity. A commercial oyster operation fostering non-native species within such a sensitive, rare habitat is in direct conflict with the Seashore’s mandate of natural systems management as well as wilderness laws and national park management policies.
The National Park Service’s environmental review concludes that the “environmentally preferred alternative” is to designate wilderness this year once the operating permit expires. Additionally, tens of thousands of American’s have called on you to fulfill the promise of a protected marine wilderness at Drakes Estero. Thank you for your public service and for your efforts to safeguard America’s great outdoors.
Sincerely,
Dr. Sylvia A. Earle
Former Chief Scientist, NOAA
National Geographic Explorer in Residence
Founder Mission Blue
Former Member, National Park Service Advisory Council and Co-Chair Scientific CommitteeJean-Michel Cousteau
Chairman of the Board and President
Ocean Futures Society
Explorer, Educator, Film ProducerDr. Tundi Agardy
Executive Director
Sound SeasProfessor Edward O. Wilson
Harvard University
Museum of Comparative ZoologyDr. Thomas E. Lovejoy
Biodiversity Chair
Former President
The Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment
Comments
I believe that NPS should revisit other units that have been victims of similar actions by the overreaching and the over-empowered if things are to be righted with NPS. Would imagine it would actually improve morale inside NPS for some serious humbling and re-evaluating of the mission. "Let them eat cake," won't work anymore I'm sensing.
Hi Kurt,
I remember your recent exchange with y_p_w about the law. I found it less than compelling. Your confidence in your argument appears to rest entirely on the February, 2004 letter from field solicitor Mihan. (In that same March 19 post, you also provide a citation from the National Research Council, which you seem to imply is additional evidence; but that citation is simply a reference to the same letter from Mihan.)
To me the most interesting thing about the letter from Mihan is its first sentence. Writing to then-Superintendent Neubacher, Mihan says: “As requested, this memorandum opinion reviews the Point Reyes wilderness situation as it related to the Johnson Oyster Company 40-year Reservation of Use and Occupancy which expires in 2011, or might be terminated sooner for cause or other processes.” Putting aside the error (2011 for 2012), and the fascinating term "other processes," what was the context of this letter? Why had the Superintendent requested this opinion? That’s the story I’m working on, and nothing I have learned so far suggests that this letter written by a field solicitor at the request of a Park Superintendent ought to be considered a definitive legal opinion.
In your March 19 reply to y_p_w you say: "...while that letter references House and Senate discussions of the legislation in the Congressional Record, I haven't yet found that language, but I'm not going to doubt the Solicitor's Office."
Given that so many other accounts differ, I see no reason *not* to doubt this solicitor.
Yes Kurt, I understand that the language came from House Report 94-1680. However, the official discussion of the PRWA also included a lot of discussion that the oyster farm could stay even with a wilderness designation. The report is not the law. It's not even an interpretation of several laws, as with something like a CRS paper. The law is the law.
I've mentioned the High Sierra Camps. Potential wilderness. Clearly a non-conforming use with those buildings and the regular use of helicopters. Kurt - you mention these them in several articles without a word that they're in potential wilderness or any controversy over whether or not the NPS violates the spirit of the Wilderness Act by not simply allowing their permits to expire. Your name is on the byline of all these articles that talk about the HSCs in glowing terms:
/review/2010/treasures-americas-national-parks5990
/2009/06/badger-pass-icon-nic-fiore-passes-taught-thousands-ski-yosemite-national-parks-ski-area
/2009/09/reservations-high-sierra-camps-yosemite-national-park-now-available-internet4550
/2010/04/summering-yosemite-national-park-logistics5671
y_p_w, the wilderness description for Point Reyes was indeed provided for in the public law passed by Congress in 1976 to designate wilderness at the seashore.
http://www.wilderness.net/NWPS/documents/publiclaws/PDF/94-544.pdf
I see no mention in that law for allowing the oyster farm to continue beyond its lease.
I am trying to track down a copy of the map, and a description of its boundaries, that Interior was to produce "as soon as practicable" to delineate the wilderness area. That map, and its accompanying text, hopefully will clear things up one way or another.
As for those other stories, they're a separate matter from the oyster farm at Point Reyes, which this story is focused on; it's not an examination of how the NPS addresses wilderness across the system, so let's not cloud the issue at hand.
That said, I would agree that a story looking at how the NPS deals with non-conforming uses in potential wilderness could be revealing. It's possible that the High Sierra Camps were given an exemption to continue operations, as they were operating long before The Wilderness Act was passed and long before the Yosemite wilderness was designated in 1984.
OK - I'll take it one at a time. First is the High Sierra Camps, since that's of interest to me. I don't have a map, but I do remember reading an EIS for Merced High Sierra Camp maintenance issues, which noted that its boundaries were within "potential wilderness".
If there were any exemptions for Yosemite, they weren't in the law. The California Wilderness Act of 1984 is about 20 pages long, and less than one page is devoted to the description of Wilderness Areas in Yosemite and SEKI. The only other mention of NPS is about the transfer of lands from the Forest Service to NPS as NPS additions. Most of the Act is about the definition of Forest Service Wilderness Areas (w/o any definition of "potential wilderness") and there are several mentions of exemptions for such pre-existing (or even future) uses such as motorized access to grazing lands, non-motorized recreation, and the construction of electric transmission lines, etc. There were several hydroelectic projects within the Forest Service Wilderness Areas that predate this Act, and they are specifically mentioned.
I agree entirely with you. The vagueness is frustrating. But I'd venture that there are supporting documents that address the continued operation of the High Sierra Camps.
Excellent Position. I support most strongly.
As a retired university research scientist, professor and physician who has also published in Nature, academic scientists always have their differences and argue mostly about the fine points of methods, statistics and results, and as with any other cohort, fight pissing battles among themselves. Any scientific work is often subjected to more trivial rather than substantive criticism.
Bringing science as it has been introduced into the "oyster farm" "scientific" "public dialogue" is a red herring.
The only point that must be made clearly and sent to Washington is that any time the government or anybody else opens the door to allowing commercial enterprises in wilderness areas, this precedent constitutes a go ahead for other enterprises such as oil and gas exploration, uranium mining etc in other wilderness areas deemed necessary and politically relevant at the moment, but that in the end ursurp and or destroy our wilderness. Period
I see no mention in the law what the requirements are for removal of any "non-conforming use". There is no mention of the oyster farm in the text of the law. As a counterpoint (not that it applies to Point Reyes) the California Wilderness Act of 1984 also doesn't establish any rules for how "potential wilderness additions" are to be added to full wilderness except that the NPS may do so once the non-conforming uses have ceased.
As for the map, it's on page 8 of the following:
http://savedrakesbay.org/uploads/DOI_Solicitor_opinion_on_Drakes_Estero.pdf
It's not a great map, and the legend says that it's a reduced size reproduction. It was obviously transmitted via a FAX machine. It does however include such landmarks as "YOUTH HOSTEL" and "OYSTER FARM". That's the only time I know of that the oyster farm is noted in the law or its supporting map and description of the wilderness areas The map is also somewhat outdated, as it specifies a piece of private land south of Abbotts Lagoon, and that is clearly now within the NPS boundaries.
The "potential wilderness additions" are marked with a cross-hatched pattern. The only land portion was a small area which I understand used to have an electric transmission line that was eventually rerouted. This section was added to full wilderness when it was published in the Federal Register. The other potential wilderness additions are exclusively water areas, including Drakes Estero, Estero de Limantour, Abbotts Lagoon, and a uniform-width thin strip of Pacific Ocean from Tomales Point to Bolinas Point, save sections between Chimney Rock/Drakes Beach and Limantour Beach to Coast Campground.
You can see this better on the official park maps, although they don't specify what are full and potential wilderness. They use a green color for land and a dark blue for water wilderness.