Drakes Bay Oyster Company & the National Park Service

Why Read This & Why Should You Care?

Drakes Bay Oyster Company Worker

Over the past seven years I have witnessed an incredible story unfold involving the National Park Service, the Sierra Club, the National Parks Conservation Association and the Environmental Action Committee of Marin hurling one accusation after another, year after year, at the owners of Drakes Bay Oyster Company / the Lunnys, and the Lunnys denying everything thrown at them.  

National Park Service Pictograms

My husband and I moved to West Marin in summer of 2004. I had no idea whom to believe. Should I believe the National Park Service, nationwide  environmental groups, plus a local environmental group, after all they are the guys in the proverbial white hats? Or should I believe a local, fourth generation rancher, who purchased the run down 80 year old oyster farm, and already spent over $300,000 just in cleaning it up and bringing it up to code?

With pressing family and business obligations of my own, all I could do until April of this year (2011) was read about the saga in the weekly paper every Thursday and look forward to Sunday morning coffee hour after church to hear the Lunny’s side of the story. The trouble came when I’d go home and try to update my husband; the stories were so fantastic, so bizarre, so extreme, I’d be told, “That couldn’t have happened!”, or “They couldn’t have said that!”, or “That can’t be true!”. I honestly began to doubt what I had heard or that I had gotten the story straight. 

About mid April of this year with family and business affairs finally straightened out,  I had the time to devote to figuring out what had actually transpired. I thought if I could do some research on the web, get the facts on paper, and create a chronology, I could decipher the mass of information and decide for myself who was telling the truth.

What I found out turned out to have national implications. Along the way, I discovered that the Federal Government –the National Park Service as well as the Department of the Interior – were not telling the truth, over and over again!  And it was not hard to uncover. It was all in black and white. I became outraged by the injustice, the abuse of power and the disregard for the ordinary person / small business owner. I was determined to make available to you what I had discovered so that you can read and decide for yourself.

This blog combines elements of my own journey in my own community to understand a public policy issue and the facts from within it. In it you will find:

• My chronology, including time lines, dates, names, information and hyperlinks to government documents, reports, investigations by the National Academies of Sciences and others, and websites .
• Articles and letters from government representatives (Darrell Issa, Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, who has begun the process for Congressional Hearings; Senator Dianne Feinstein, who has been on this since 2007, the original authors of the 1976 Wilderness Act, and others), world renowned scientists, authors, etc.
• Commentary on the draft Environmental Impact Statement, other meetings, etc.
• YouTube links and Power Point Presentations by Dr. Corey Goodman (the scientist who uncovered and exposed the scientific misconduct which is now the subject of an investigation by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform) and author Paul D. Berkowitz, a retired 25 year veteran of the National Park Service Criminal Investigation branch.
• And much more

Why should you read this, why should you care?

• We have federal agencies run amok: the Point Reyes National Seashore was established in 1962 when the local ranchers and farmers, with the assistance of the Sierra Club, negotiated a deal to sell their 100 plus year old historic dairies and ranches to the National Park Service in exchange for RENEWABLE leases.  50 years later, they need protection from the very agency that made a deal to protect them in perpetuity.
• We have national and local environmental groups run amok. The Sierra Club and the National Parks Conservation Association along with the Environmental Action Committee here in Marin, have falsified documents and photographs, given false testimony, and are sending misleading email blasts to their subscribers across the nation in an attempt to aid in the termination of the oyster farm. The Sierra Club, the very group that championed the cause to protect and preserve the ranches and dairies 50 years ago now seeks to destroy them today by starting with the removal of the oyster farm.
• We have a locally produced, sustainable, renewable, ecologically beneficial food source that provides jobs for 30 local workers, a good thing for the planet and a good thing for the locals and the local economy.
• Drakes Estero is one of the most pristine estuarine systems in the nation where eelgrass has doubled and harbor seals find refuge during the pupping season. It is a sanctuary well protected by the oyster operation and its workers.
• World population in 1960 was 3 Billion, as of November 2011, it is 7 Billion, two and one third times bigger in 50 years. Congress wants to increase shellfish production by 5 fold, the President wants to create jobs, and the Sierra Club, the National Park Conservation Association, the Environmental Action Committee (of Marin) along with  the National Park Service want to eliminate them. Seems like some cannot see the forrest for the trees!
• The story is not over yet! The lease is up for renewal (or in the National Park’s eyes, expires) November 2012. The National Park Service has released its draft Environmental Impact Statement that is so bizarre it is unbelievable and has garnered the attention of Washington.

 As of Monday, 11-07-11, summoned to Washington for “transcribed interviews” (depositions) were Gavin Frost, Solicitor for the Department of the Interior; Jon Jarvis, Director of the National Park Service; Don Neubacher, former superintendent of Point Reyes National Seashore; Dr. Marcia McNutt, Science Advisor to the Office of the Secretary; Dr Sarah Allen, NPS Scientist; Dr. Ben Becker, NPS Scientist; and Cicely Muldoon, Superintendent, Point Reyes National Seashore. There is enough evidence, there is a case, and this is in preparation for the Congressional Hearings to come.

 I will bring you information as it becomes available and will post commentary as well.

 Where should you begin?  

• Start with the chronology
• then read the Commentary
• then the YouTube presentations of Dr. Corey Goodman. 

After that, have a look at the Articles and Letters, Scientists Weigh In, and then NPS Elsewhere.

Decide for yourself what is going on.

 

 

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