To watch the video: “The Framing of an Oyster Farm”, click the link or copy and paste it into your web browser: http://vimeo.com/52331881
05-20-2013 NPS Supporters Misrepresent Scientific Facts in Letter to DOI Jewell
NPS Supporters Misrepresent Scientific Facts in Letter to Interior Secretary
Science and Environmental Impacts Come to Fore at Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Hearing
Inverness, California, May 20, 2013 — A rebuttal was filed today with Interior Secretary Jewell in response to a letter to the Secretary on May 16 from Environmental Action Committee of West Marin (EAC) Executive Director Amy Trainer.
“In her letter to the Secretary, Amy Trainer misrepresented every report she cited,” said Dr. Goodman, who filed the rebuttal. “This is not a case about a difference of opinions. Rather, this is a case about the fabrication of facts and a cover-up.”
These misrepresentations were intended to blunt a scientific misconduct complaint filed with Interior Secretary Jewell on May 13 alleging that both the National Park Service (NPS) and U.S. Geological Service (USGS) knowingly fabricated harbor seal data in their reports. In the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS), NPS claimed evidence of harbor seal disturbances by Drakes Bay Oyster Company (DBOC).
“The EAC continues to try to deceive the public and elected officials with misinformation,” said Dr. Goodman. “It is difficult for our community to have an informed and thoughtful discussion when EAC continues to put out statements that they know are incorrect and misleading.”
The so-called evidence of harbor seal disturbances by DBOC, as presented in the FEIS, was falsified. NPS based its claim upon analysis by an independent harbor seal behavior expert, Dr. Brent Stewart of Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute. But in contrast to what the NPS stated in the FEIS, Dr. Stewart twice found just the opposite, namely, no evidence of disturbances by DBOC skiffs.
For more on this, click on, or copy and paste the link below into your web browser:
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05-15-2013 Drakes Bay Oyster Company Answers Frequently Asked Questions:
Q: Do environmentalists support the oyster farm?
Q: Does oyster farming provide positive ecological services that help the environment?
Q: NPS claims that DBOC harms birds, water, and wildlife—is that accurate?
Q: Under California and Federal Agreements, is DBOC allowed to farm past 2012?
Q: Can DBOC stay without setting a bad precedent against wilderness?
Q: Are the oyster farmers careful not to disturb the seals and other wildlife?
Q: What is the situation regarding the original agreement between NPS and DBOC?
Q: Who is supporting DBOC in its lawsuits?
Q: What is the current status of the federal lawsuit challenging Secretary Salazar’s denial of a new Special Use Permit to Drakes Bay Oyster Company?
Q: Who supports DBOC in Congress?
For the answers to these questions, click on the link below or copy and paste the link into your web browser:
http://oysterzone.wordpress.com/2013/05/17/05-15-2013-faqs-about-drakes-bay-oyster-co/
05-14-2013 Russian River Times: “What lies in Drake’s Estero”
Journalism is supposed to be the first draft of history, not the first rewrite of press releases and sound bites. In recent weeks, some journalists reporting on the Estero controversy say ‘they would not touch the science,” not realizing the irony that they are essentially saying they are reporting without knowledge. The word ‘science’ itself comes from the Latin scientia, ”to know.”
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05-14-2013 Greenwire, by Emily Yehle USGS Rushed report and misrepresented biologist’s findings:
“The U.S. Geological Survey published a report that misrepresented a biologist’s findings, lending support to the National Park Service’s claims that a California oyster farm disturbs nearby seals.
USGS is the latest agency to get sucked into the years-long controversy over whether the National Park Service manipulated science to shore up public support for closing Drakes Bay Oyster Co. In the latest twist, documents show USGS reported that a series of photos linked oyster boats to disturbed seals — when, in fact, a marine biologist had told the agency that the photos showed no such link.”
For the complete article click on the link below or copy and paste it into your web browser:
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05-11-2013 Jeannette Pontacq in a letter to the editor of the Marin IJ in response to Lynn Hamilton of Occidental, who wants to ‘save’ the Point Reyes ‘wilderness from our local oyster company on Drake’s Estero (May 11 letter to the editor), I would like to respectfully add …
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05-10-2013 Russian River Times – What Was The Deal? by Sarah Rolph
“The story told by anti-oyster farm activists is that the Lunnys reneged on a deal. These activists have linked that story with another story about “wilderness,” claiming that the public was promised Drakes Estero would be wilderness in 2012. In fact, it’s the Park Service and those activists that changed the deal on the Lunnys and the public.
In 1976, Congress considered designating Drakes Estero as “wilderness.” But the Department of Interior and the Park Service told Congress that Drakes Estero could not become a wilderness until California gave up its rights to lease Drakes Estero. Congress agreed, and it removed the wilderness designation for Drakes Estero in the 1976 Point Reyes Wilderness Act. Legally, Drakes Estero cannot become wilderness until California gives up its rights (which it has not done).
For more than 30 years after 1972, the Park Service supported continued and even expanded oyster farming in perpetuity. For reasons the Park Service has not explained, however, its position changed completely after the Lunnys purchased the oyster farm in early 2005.”
For the full text of the article click on the link below or copy and paste it into your web browser:
http://oysterzone.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/05-10-2013-russian-river-times-what-was-the-deal-by-sarah-rolph/
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04-08-13 Marin IJ Editorial:
The Virginia Marine Resources Commission will begin the largest oyster replenishment program in the state’s history. The $2 million effort will plant oyster shells on state-owned beds in the James, the York, the Rappahannock and other places in the bay to create habitats conducive to the nourishment of oysters. Gov. Bob McDonnell asked for the appropriation; the General Assembly approved his request. The 2013 assembly session proved an excellent one for the bay.
Recent years have reported gratifying news regarding the bay’s oysters, which are staging a comeback. Aquaculture is thriving in the bay and along its tributaries. Smart policies by the state and by private concerns contribute to the restoration. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation has been an effective advocate for the bivalves. A healthy bay produces flourishing oyster populations; flourishing oyster populations promote the bay’s health.
For the entire editorial: And so to beds, click on the link below or copy and paste it into your web browser:
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04/19/13 Phyllis Faber letter to Gov. Jerry Brown:
Today ALSA (Alliance for Local Sustainable Agriculture) and I have filed a lawsuit against the California Coastal Commission on behalf of Drakes Bay Oyster Company for actions that do not conform to provisions of the Coastal Act of 1976 nor to its spirit. This is an extraordinarily painful step for me to take as I was co-chair of the Marin County effort to support Proposition 20 that created the California Coastal Commission in 1972 and served on the North Central Regional Commission for eight years, as chair for two years. I have been a strong supporter since the Commission was formed forty years ago. The Coast of California is clearly better off with the coastal management the Commission has provided.
I am an 85 years old, white haired biologist. Professionally, I am an editor for Natural History Books for UC Press. In Marin County, I was included in a small group on whom was bestowed the title of “Environmental Elder.” I wear it with pride. For more than 40 years – I remain an unabashed supporter of the California Coastal Act.
Today, however, in West Marin in their recent action against the Drakes Bay Oyster Company, the Commission has “lost its way.” It has engaged in an inexplicable campaign – exceeding its charter – to bureaucratically smother – to drive out of business — a working family farm, the Drakes Bay Oyster Company.
For the complete article, click on, or copy and paste the link below into your web browser:
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03/23/13 Following a marathon session yesterday, the US Senate passed on a 50-49 vote, a Federal budget that:
- revised the budget for 2013; and,
- established budget levels for federal spending through 2023.
More than 400 amendments were filed (formally submitted), and of that, about one in five (around 80 – don’t have exact number) were actually debated, considered and then subject to a voice or recorded vote. The Senate adjourned at 5:23 am (Eastern time).
One of those 400 amendments — Senators Vitter (R-LA) and Feinstein (D-CA) co-sponsored a bi-partisan amendment to extend the DBOC lease for 10 years (consistent with the previously enacted statutory authority in 2009). Along with more than 300 other amendments, this amendment, in the rush and crush to complete action on the budget, did not get considered.
Like Senator Feinstein, NPS false science and the Interior Department’s failed (corrupt) IG investigations compelled Senator Vitter’s initial involvement in Drakes Estero issues in 2011. Senator Vitter also represents one of the largest shellfish growing states and regions (Gulf Coast).
The Vitter-Feinstein effort signals a new bi-partisan effort to correct Secretary Salazar’s agenda-driven decision to shut down the nearly 100-year old iconic oyster farm in Drakes Estero. Both Senators, working together, will have other opportunities to correct this injustice.
Late yesterday afternoon, Cause of Action issued the following statement:
Today, Senators David Vitter (R-LA) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) co-sponsored an amendment to the Senate Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2014, which, if passed, would allow Drakes Bay Oyster Company to remain open for 10 more years. The amendment would “establish a deficit-neutral reserve fund to reinstate the reservation of use and occupancy and special use permits to conduct certain commercial operations.”
Dan Epstein, Cause of Action’s executive director commented on the proposal:
“Government accountability is not a partisan issue—neither is saving jobs. This amendment would save 30 jobs at Drakes Bay Oyster Company and 40 percent of California’s oyster market. It would also send the message to the Department of Interior that transparency and scientific integrity cannot be casually dismissed for political purposes.”
Cause of Action, Briscoe Ivester & Bazel LLP, Stoel Rives LLP, and SSL Law represent Drakes Bay Oyster Company in their current federal lawsuit against the Department of the Interior, National Park Service and Secretary Ken Salazar.
SF Chronicle
The amendment, by Sen. David Vitter, R-Louisiana, and Feinstein, D-Calif., was added to the Senate Concurrent Resolution for the 2014 federal budget. It would “establish a deficit-neutral reserve fund to reinstate the reservation of use and occupancy and special use permits to conduct certain commercial operations.”
Feinstein, who has accused the National Park Service of launching an unfair, scientifically flawed campaign against the oyster farm, also sponsored legislation in 2009 authorizing a lease extension, which Salazar eventually chose not to do. That decision prompted the company to sue.
“This amendment would save 30 jobs at Drakes Bay Oyster Co. and 40 percent of California’s oyster market,” said Dan Epstein, the executive director of Cause of Action, which is part of the oyster company’s legal team. “It would also send the message to the Department of Interior that transparency and scientific integrity cannot be casually dismissed for political purposes.”
Friday Mar 22, 2013 8:53 PM PT
Feinstein goes feet first into oyster farm fray
To read the full article click on the link below or copy and paste it into your web browser:
http://oysterzone.wordpress.com/2013/03/23/03232013-federal-budget-vote/
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03/20/2013 Ca. Farm Bureau Federation President’s Message: Why the DBOC Case Matters.
Farm and Foodshed Report
With your host: Robin Carpenter
The crucial stories impacting our local farms and foodshed
“Fresh Support for Drakes Bay Oyster Company” – episode aired March 18, 2013
** Listen online: http://kwmr.org/blog/show/4799 **
Nancy McDonough, General Counsel for the California Farm Bureau Federation:
“We very much endorse and advance a collaborative approach… It’s so important that we’re able to achieve environmental protection at the same time as we have agricultural production. We’re always looking for places to achieve that…. I think if anything hits the target of the sweet spot, the Drakes Bay Oyster Company does.”
Patricia Unterman, owner of the Hayes Street Grill and a pioneer of the sustainable seafood movement in restaurants:
“We’ve really seen a revolution in the way people are eating from the sea now. And that’s what makes the Drakes Bay oysters so valuable to us. My goodness, here’s a product that’s beautifully raised and really delicious. We pan-fry them, and they’re just so crisp and delicious and sweet. Here’s a product that is being harvested an hour away from the restaurant and the notion that we couldn’t get them anymore is devastating and terrible. It runs against the whole food movement that developed over these past 30 years.”
Jeff Creque an Agroecologist who is on the board of the Alliance for Local and Sustainable Agriculture of Marin County:
“That’s really the core of this whole issue: how do we care for our environment and also provide ourselves with the things that we need? And that’s the challenge for me in my work is always looking for that sweet spot between environmental protection and agricultural production. And the beauty of this concept [collaborative management] is that it really helps us look for those answers. It’s where we are I think globally now. We have a literal massive global crisis on our hands, and yet there’s 7 billion of us on the planet and we need to be fed and clothed. How do we do that? How do we weigh those, not just weigh those in a trade-off context, but is there a way we can actually combine those two realities in a way that can actually benefit both the environment and our needs as human beings in the planet?”
Click here to listen to the radio show online: http://kwmr.org/blog/show/4799
KWMR, a West Marin community radio station, airs a weekly show called The Farm and Foodshed Report. On Monday, March 18th, host Robin Carpenter brought together three of the “friends” who were part of an Amicus or Friends of the Court brief submitted in support of the Drake’s Bay Oyster Farm on March 13th. The “Three Amigos” on the show are Patricia Unterman, owner of the Hayes Street Grill and a pioneer of the sustainable seafood movement in restaurants, Nancy McDonough, General Counsel, California Farm Bureau Federation and Jeff Creque an Agroecologist who is on the board of the Alliance for Local and Sustainable Agriculture of Marin County (ALSA). This diverse group talked in an exciting and fresh new way about the crucial role Drake’s Bay Oyster Company plays both locally and beyond. It is clear that they came together because as stated in the brief, “There is no single voice that can speak for the “public interest” in keeping the Drakes Bay Oyster Farm open…” This show is well worth your time to hear some new perspectives.
To listen the program and read more, click on the link below or copy and paste it into your web browser:
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03-17-13 Marin IJ: Harmonic Convergence for Point Reyes Oysters
The Park Service’s own publication, “Stewardship Begins With People,” [NPSG_999_D1963_selected pages] effectively and passionately embraces — and justifies — renewing Drakes Bay Oyster Co.’s lease.
“Stewardship” presents a blueprint for “advancing innovations in collaborative conservation for the stewardship of our national system of parks and other special places” by highlighting successful examples of places, people and businesses long imbedded in national parks and nearby agricultural communities. Each is a poster example of sound, time-honored mixed use of park lands.
In a prior edition now out of print and no longer Web-accessible, “Stewardship” featured the Lunny Family Farm and its wise diversification into oysters.
Pages 4, 20, 30 and 32 are particularly poignant and speak to the Park Service’s policy of exploring creative ways to “re-establish a connection — between parks and living cultures; between public lands and the stewardship of farms and forests; between people and the food they eat; and between park visitors, communities and a more sustainable future.”
To read the full article click on the link below or copy and paste it into your web browser:
http://oysterzone.wordpress.com/2013/03/18/03-17-13-marin-ij-harmonic-convergence-for-point-reyes-oysters/
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03/15/13 DBOC Attracts Support from Restauranteurs (Chez Panisse’s Alice Waters)
“Interior is making its best effort to flat out kill this oyster farm and its jobs by using misleading science and ignoring economic impacts,” Sen. David Vitter, R-La., one of the lead sponsors — 22 other Republicans have signed onto the bill — wrote in a statement to the Independent Journal. “My bill would implement a good first step to letting the Drakes Bay workers continue working.”
To read the full article click on the link below or copy and paste it into your web browser:
http://oysterzone.wordpress.com/2013/03/16/031513-dboc-attracts-support-from-restauranteurs-chez-panisses-alice-waters/
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03/14/13 Nat’l Pks Traveler: Renowned Chef, Farm Bureau Support DBOC
3/14/13 National Parks Traveler
Alice Waters, a chef renowned for her insistence on the freshest organically grown and locally produced ingredients, has signed on to a “friend of the court” brief in support of an oyster company trying to hold on to its operations at Point Reyes National Seashore on California.
To read the full article click on the link below or copy and paste it into your web browser:
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3/14/13 Press Democrat: Chef Alice Waters, Sonoma Farm Bureau, & others Back DBOC
Famed Berkeley chef Alice Waters and the Sonoma County Farm Bureau filed a federal court brief Thursday supporting Drakes Bay Oyster Company’s battle to stay in business in Point Reyes National Seashore.
Their 29-page “friend of the court” brief opposed the National Park Service’s order to shut the oyster farm on Drakes Estero, asserting the move is “inconsistent with the best thinking of the modern environmental movement.”
To read the full article click on the link below or copy and paste it into your web browser:
http://oysterzone.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=3016&action=edit&message=6&postpost=v2
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03/14/13 E&ENews PM
Farm groups, businesses back Calif. oyster farm’s bid to stay at national seashore
A coalition of local businesses and agriculture interests yesterday came out in support of a California oyster farm slated for closure in Point Reyes National Seashore.
In the first of what is likely to be many legal briefs on both sides to be filed ahead of a May hearing with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the coalition said it supports the Drakes Bay Oyster Co.’s case for an injunction that would allow it to remain open while a lawsuit against the Interior Department is settled.
To read the full article click on the link below or copy and paste it into your web browser:
http://oysterzone.wordpress.com/2013/03/16/031413-ee-news-pm-farm-groups-businesses-back-dboc/
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03-07-13 Joan Chevalier in Range Magazine:
I write about the colonial attitude of America’s large environmental organizations toward rural Americans.
“Anthropologists call this reterritorialization when a dominant culture, wanting to take over a subordinate culture, tells itself a pretty little story about its own heroism in saving the savage wrong-headed natives from themselves. The message the natives hear is: “You can either make a living on our terms or you can disappear.”
The will to make rural Americans disappear is no where so well demonstrated as in a second article in Range magazine’s Spring issue, “Shell Game on Drakes Estero” by Carolyn Dufurrena. (rangmagazine.com) Those of you who are members of the Sierra Club should resign immediately. The Sierra Club (whose name is anathema in rural America) has led a campaign of misinformation, in league with the National Park Service, against a small oyster farm in California, all in the name of “wilderness.” ….. The levels of betrayal here are Dickensian.
To read the full article click on the link below or copy and paste it into your web browser:
http://oysterzone.wordpress.com/2013/03/18/03072013-range-magazine-on-reterritorialization/
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02-21-13 75-page report details misconduct – performance & execution of investigations under Mary Kendall.
02-21-13 “House Natural Resources Committee… released a scathing 75-page report detailing misconduct in the performance and execution of IG investigations under the four-year tenure of “Acting” IG – Mary Kendall….
What is so striking – the categories of issues identified in this House Committee Report (having nothing to do with NPS at Point Reyes) are almost identical to the suite of issues involving NPS science at Drakes Estero – unfinished IG reports, gross errors, glaring omissions, significant misrepresentations, altered data, missing emails – and the list goes on. “
This is the story of TWO REPORTS – one from House Natural Resources Committee (just released) AND the second, a new Inspector General’s Report, prepared by the OIG under DOI IG Mary Kendall, on NPS science at Point Reyes/Drakes Estero (released in early February).
For more on this, click on the link below or copy and paste it into your web browser:
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02-14-13 Pt Reyes Light: Coastal Commission Trumped Up Claims Against DBOC
“For years, NPS has made false claims of DBOC harm to the environment. The 2009 NAS review found that the Park Service had “selectively presented, overinterpreted, or misrepresented the available scientific information on DBOC operations by exaggerating the negative and overlooking potentially beneficial effects” – damning language coming from scientists, who are famously conservative about such matters. The Department of Interior Inspector General reported in March 2011 that it found the Park Service staff at Point Reyes guilty of “misconduct [that] arose from incomplete and biased evaluation and from blurring the line between exploration and advocacy through research,” and that “responses from NPS employees reveal a collective but troubling mindset.”
That didn’t stop NPS from including the same false claims, and more, in their EIS—but that document was found to be so lacking in substance by the National Academy’s 2012 review that it has now been effectively discarded. Thus the need for something to reinforce the false narrative.
Marin County supervisor and CCC vice-chair Steve Kinsey voted for the Order because he found it technically correct, given that the CDP isn’t official. But even so, he calls the situation “morally disturbing,” saying the CCC “repeated the same disproven assertions that the operation was harming harbor seals and eelgrass” NPS has made. Says Kinsey, “CCC staff chose to portray the Lunnys as irresponsible operators to aid and abet the Park Service’s myopic interest in terminating the lease. Given the unequivocal support of aquaculture written into the Coastal Act and the specific support in Marin’s Local Coastal Program, I am deeply disappointed in the staff’s attitude and complicity with the NPS.”
The desire to remove DBOC flies in the face of every county, state, and federal policy about oyster aquaculture. Oyster farming is known to help the environment, as noted above by the NAS; this is of course why oyster restoration projects are under way all over the world. The Marin County planning documents call for support of aquaculture, the PRNS General Management Plan supports it, and even the CCC charter, the Coastal Act says “aquaculture is a coastal-dependent use which should be encouraged to augment food supplies.”
Something is very wrong here.”
To read the full article click on the link below or copy and paste it into your web browser:
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02-14-13 NothBayBiz article:
Drakes Bay Oyster Company’s Royal Shucking by NPS
…the Park Service was a party to reports that doctored the science, shaded the truth or spun the data regarding how the oyster business negatively affected the park. The reports were designed to influence public opinion and to paint the oyster operation as being bad for the environment or poor stewards of the Estero. While it was eventually acknowledged that the reports were flawed, the damage was done.
The White House is about small business…mostly. The Obama administration has spent plenty of time talking about small business and its role in restoring the economy. But in this case there were 30 people pink slipped when Salazar put the hammer to Drakes Bay.
Bill Meagher
Columnist: Bill Meagher
To read the full article click on the link below or copy and paste it into your web browser:
http://oysterzone.wordpress.com/2013/02/14/02-14-13-no-bay-biz-dboc-royal-shucking-by-nps/
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02-12-13 National Grange, the nation’s oldest agricultural organization,blog posting response(s) to National Park Service and Ken Salazar’s decision to oust Drake’s Bay Oyster Company
“Dig deeper and you will see that it is… MUCH MORE about ignoring the intent of the original law, ignoring good science, exploiting tax dollars,
and having federal. government ignoring and overriding … your state rights;
in short, decisions weren’t made on common-sense facts and figures and the removal of the farm will greatly hurt the community….
… this isn’t like fighting a big box company that would put the small shops out of business….
the oyster farm is one of the keystone farms out in the Pt. Reyes area and allows for many of the local businesses and restaurants to thrive because of the farm’s existence.
- If you believe in sustainable farming,
- if you support low-carbon footprint farming to help mitigate climate change,
- if you understand the important role of oysters in an eco-system
- if you further understand the important position that each player has to keep a small community healthy and happy ,-
- then you understand that saving this farm is not simply ‘about a business’.
If instead ‘environmentalist emotion’ tugs harder at you heartstrings
[If] your ‘trust in the government runs stronger than the truth…then unfortunately you are looking at the situation with an unbalanced and unclear viewpoint.”
To read the full article click on the link below or copy and paste it into your web browser:
02-06-13 National Grange, America’s Oldest agricultural organization sends letter of support of DBOC to Obama and asks that Salazar’s decision be overturned.
”This farm and other such oyster farms have environmental benefits for the eco-system and that is why the federal government presently spends millions of taxpayer dollars to help restore oysters and shellfish in numerous areas in the United States, including but not limited to the Gulf of Mexico, New England Coast, the Chesapeake Bay and all the way to the Pacific Northwest as filter feeders of our waters….…Even as far from California as we are here in Washington D.C., we can envision the considerable negative layers unfolding which would not go unnoticed if Secretary Salazar’s decision is followed through. As just one example, the agricultural runoff into the Drakes Estero from the remaining agricultural operations that were spared former Secretary Salazar’s decision will not be filtered once the oysters are forcibly removed…We ask that you urgently consider overturning former Secretary Salazar’s misguided decision and help bring back a more peaceful integrated decision which highlights sustainable, environmentally friendly and low carbon footprint agriculture rather than tossing it aside. The wilderness area of Pt. Reyes and the Lunny’s sustainable, small family farm can certainly co-exist, as they have done for nearly a hundred years.”To read the full article click on the link below or copy and paste it into your web browser:http://oysterzone.wordpress.com/2013/02/10/02-06-13-oldest-agricultural-organization-national-grange-supports-dboc-in-letter-to-obama/************************************************************************
02-09-13 Kirk MacKenzie, founder of Defend Rural America, with 2,000 members in California and Oregon, and a national reach of over 45,000, writes:
“Having evaluated the so-called “scientific” arguments made in favor of destroying the Klamath River Dams and Drakes Bay Oyster Farm, I and other DRA members conclude these arguments are fraudulent. There is already substantial, credible, and documented scientific analysis provided by Dr. John Menke, Dr. Paul Houser, Dr. Corey Goodman, and others that exposes the information is being intentionally falsified to justify a pre-determined outcome irrespective of the truth or the people.
Continued use of the discredited “science” to justify the destruction of these dams would, in my opinion, be actionable. Individuals could and should be held liable for actual and punitive damages. Fraud defeats any claimed shield of immunity.”
To read the full article click on the link below or copy and paste it into your web browser:
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Posted by Communications Staff in Blog on January 23, 2013 12:30 pm
The decision last November by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar not to renew The Drakes Bay Oyster Company’s lease was based on a number of inaccurate and misleading claims. Here are five myths that the Secretary, his supporters, and the National Park Service use to justify the oyster farm’s eviction from Drakes Estero:
To read the full article click on the link below or copy and paste it into your web browser:
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01-23-13 Huffington Post
Sustainable Agriculture, Wilderness and DrakesBay Oysters: The Role of Science in Policy
Posted: 01/23/2013 6:47 pm, by Peter Gleick
In the past couple of years, a debate in Northern California over wilderness protection, sustainable agriculture, and the integrity of science has spiraled into the dirt. The fight is over whether to continue to permit a small privately managed oyster farm, the Drakes Bay Oyster Company, to continue to operate inside what is now the Point Reyes National Seashore in Marin County, California. The oyster operation predates the Park, having been in Drakes Estero for nearly a century, but the Estero is now eligible for wilderness status. Supporters of wilderness believe the oyster farm is an incompatible use and should be closed. Supporters of local sustainable agriculture believe the farm should remain because of its history, benign environmental impacts, and role in the local economy. In late 2012, after an extensive debate marked by disturbing scientific misconduct and abuse, local acrimony among long-time friends, and controversy among federal and state agencies, Interior Secretary Salazar ruled that the farm should be closed, giving the owners a mere 90 days to remove their operations, fire their employees, and abandon the farm.
Too often in the past few years bad science, or indeed a philosophy antithetical to science, has been pushed by special interests and some policymakers. This isn’t new — there is a long history of pseudoscientific or downright anti-scientific thinking and political culture — ironic, given how much founding fathers like Benjamin Franklin valued science.
Good science should have played a key role in the DrakesBay debacle, and open community discussion should have as well. But we didn’t get good science. Instead, the National Park Service, the Department of the Interior (DoI), and some local environmental supporters (with whom I often have strong common cause) manipulated, misreported and misrepresented science in their desire to support expanded wilderness. In an effort to produce a rationale to close the farm, false arguments were made that the farm damaged or disturbed local seagrasses, water quality, marine mammals and ecosystem diversity. These arguments have, one after another, been shown to be based on bad science and contradicted by evidence hidden or suppressed or ignored by federal agencies. The efforts of local scientists, especially Dr. Corey Goodman, professor emeritus from both Stanford and Berkeley and a member of the U.S. National Academy of Science, were central to revealing the extent of scientific misconduct. Reviews by independent scientists and now confirmed by investigations at the Department of Interior and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences show that arguments of environmental harm from the oyster farm were misleading and wrong. One of those reviews criticized the “willingness to allow subjective beliefs and values to guide scientific conclusions,” the use of “subjective conclusions, vague temporal and geographic references, and questionable mathematic calculations,” and “misconduct [that] arose from incomplete and biased evaluation and from blurring the line between exploration and advocacy through research.” The review by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that the Park Service:
selectively presented, over-interpreted, or misrepresented the available science on the potential impacts of the oyster mariculture operation.
In this case, I believe the decision to close the farm was the wrong one, done for the wrong reason, and it should be overturned. Supporters of the farm are still fighting, and it is possible that there will be a change of heart at either the federal level, or in the courts.
To read the full article click on the link below or copy and paste it into your web browser:
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01-23-13 Russian River Times: Salazar Decision Hides from History and Abandons Science
After seven years of repeated National Park Service (NPS) allegations that Drakes Bay Oyster Farm harmed the environment, the multimillion-dollar NPS Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) created to support those claims was quietly abandoned by Interior Department Secretary Salazar and NPS Director Jarvis, raising fresh questions about the propriety of the process. Secretary Salazar claims his decision against the oyster farm was based on sound legal interpretation, yet he cited no legal opinion or analysis document. The Salazar decision was a complete reversal of established NPS policy. And it directly contradicted previous NEPA assessments of the very same oyster farm.
To read the full article click on the link below or copy and paste it into your web browser:
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01-05-2013 Hosted by Paul Gigot, the Pulitzer-Prize winning editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal, the weekly half-hour program “Journal Editorial Report” features newsmakers and members of the Journal editorial page staff debating the major economic, political and cultural issues of the day.
This week’s show, Hits & Misses: 1/5/13, features Daniel Henninger, deputy editor of The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page. He is the third to speak on the program. His topic is Ken Salazar shutting down Drakes Bay Oyster Company.
His piece begins one minute and three seconds (01:03) into the less than two-minute segment. (You can advance directly to his segment by using your mouse pointer and the progress bar, or just wait until the preceding two pieces finish.)
Click on, or copy and paste, either link below to be taken directly to the “Hits & Misses: 1/5/13″ segment of the Journal Editorial Report
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/journal-editorial-report/index.html
Jan 5, 2013 1:42
Hits & Misses: 1/5/13
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At Sonoma’s Meritage Martini Oyster Bar & Grille, for example, the eatery faces having to order all of its oysters from Washington state, says executive chef-proprietor Carlo Cavallo. Mr. Cavallo says he gets his local oysters from Drakes and tried to arrange a new supply from the other major producer, Hog Island Oyster Co., but was turned down.
“There’s the cachet of not being able to eat the local oyster,” Mr. Cavallo says. “It makes us look like idiots.”
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Scramble for Oysters as Farm Faces Closure
By Jim Carlton, 2 January 2013, 20:30 GMT, The Wall Street Journal Online, Copyright 2013 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
To read the full article click on the link below or copy and paste it into your web browser:
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In 1976 Congress established the Point Reyes National Seashore that encompasses this area. Several local farms were designated ‘historic’ and, along with the oyster operation, were allowed to stay. West Marin has been at the forefront of sustainable farming methods for decades and continues this nature friendly industry today. As stated, DBOC is also an adherent to environmentally sensitive farming methods. However, an overzealous group of environmentalists have used misleading and misrepresented scientific studies to convince the National Park Service to terminate DBOC’s lease this past November. This is not only a shame, as a traditional family business with about 30 workers will be shut down, but an environmental faux pas as well. DBOC is the only California oyster farm and produces almost half of what the state consumes. The demand is not going to go away. The replacement proteins will now be shipped in from Asia or the east coast. What kinds of carbon footprint conditions were considered in this move?
A Left Coast View
By John Blanchard
Pacifica Tribune Columnist
Posted: 01/01/2013 05:02:39 PM PST
Updated: 01/01/2013 05:02:40 PM PST
To read the full article click on the link below or copy and paste it into your web browser:
http://oysterzone.wordpress.com/2013/01/02/01-01-2013-pacifica-tribune-a-left-coast-view/
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12-18-12
I can … understand why this was a no-brainer for national environmental organizations. In calling for the closure of the oyster farm, they were advocating for an important principle: Whenever possible, potential wildernesses should receive full wilderness protection, and commercial enterprises removed.
In this case, however, the principle is misaligned with the place. For all of the reasons alluded to … — ecological, cultural, educational, recreational — it doesn’t make sense to consider Drakes Estero a wilderness area.
I worry about what this disconnect between the ideal and the specific reveals of the environmental movement. The twentieth century activists who saved Point Reyes knew well that conservationism, in its best sense, is all about a love of place. Affection for place is how the ur-pastoralist Wendell Berry explains it. At the risk of being too cynical, I don’t see much love of place in the behavior of national environmental groups involved in this fight. Not when an overwhelming percentage of Marin residents — many, if not most of them, committed environmentalists — support the oyster farm. Not when I happen to know that the conservation director of a Big Green group advocating for the oyster farm’s closure has never stepped foot in Point Reyes National Seashore.• Not when I consider the wall of silence (see here and here and here) that greeted the Interior Department’s move — just two days before Salazar’s Drakes Estero decision — to open 20 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas leasing. The whole affair strikes me as an easy way for national environmental organizations to win some points with a largely symbolic victory and also, on the flip side, a relatively easy way for the Obama Administration to throw environmentalists a bone.
Latest News
In Defense of Drakes Bay Oyster Company
BY JASON MARK – DECEMBER 18, 2012Follow Jason Mark on Twitter
Field Notes from Point Reyes National Seashore
To read the full article click on the link below or copy and paste it into your web browser:
http://oysterzone.wordpress.com/2013/01/24/12-18-12-in-defense-of-drakes-bay-oyster-company/
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http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/12/16/18728228.php
North Bay / Marin | U.S. | Environment & Forest Defense | Labor & Workers
More on Drakes Bay Oyster Company
by D. Boyer
Sunday Dec 16th, 2012 10:52 AM
Drakes Bay Oyster Company Special Use Permit Environmental Statement contradicts actual kayakers experience’s with that company on Drakes Bay.
After publishing the first piece about the Drakes Bay Oyster Company, I discovered new information in regards to Kayakers comments about the existence of that company in Drakes Bay. In a statement released by the 3 local kayaking companies there appears to be all positive comments about the existence of the Drakes Bay Oyster Company in Drakes Bay. As a matter of fact the three top kayaking companies in the area, have stated that Draft Environmental Impact Statement did not accurately reflect their experiences with the DBOC. The impact statement indicates that the wilderness area is disrupted by the pneumatic tools and or powerboats, but representatives from those kayak companies state that the existence of the Drakes bay Oyster company adds to the wilderness experience instead of impacting them negatively.
To read the full article click on the link below or copy and paste it into your web browser:
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12-16-12 Kevin Lunny, in a follow up email to Michael Zwerling, owner of KSCO News Talk Radio 1080, and host of “Saturday Special”, where he and Dr. Corey Goodman were guests on 12-15-2012, points out yet another case of Selective Omission [by wilderness activists].
MZ,
The wilderness activists gave you a quote from the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees to put on your website. They left out the paragraph just before the section they gave to you, it reads:
“Coalition chair, Maureen Finnerty said, “This decision is a clear affirmation that decisions within the areas of the National Park System must be based on accurate fidelity to the law, the best available sound science and scholarship, and in the long term public interest. Secretary Salazar has clearly placed resources stewardship ahead of the narrow commercial interests of the farm’s operator. This is a win-win for the American people.”
As you know, we agree that the decisions must be based on “the best available sound science and scholarship”. Perhaps Maureen Finnerty actually believes the Secretary’s decision meets this standard. I believe that Amy, Neal and Gordon know full well that it does not. These activists have been deeply involved in this issue for years. I believe Amy, Neal and Gordon know full well that Salazar violated this critical sound science standard and violated the law by cherry picking which laws applied to his decision and which ones he chose to ignore.
For the full letter and the attachment, click or copy and paste the link below into your web browser:
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courtesy of cartoonist George Russell, Salazar’s Oyster Nightmare
George Russell: Oyster nightmare
Posted: 12/15/2012 09:42:22 AM PST
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Listen to AM 1080, KSCO News Talk Radio Saturday, 12-15-12, ten AM to noon Pacific Time – live stream at
http://ksco.com/
His guests will be Dr. Corey Goodman, the NAS Scientist who uncovered the scientific misconduct by the NPS, and Kevin Lunny, owner of DBOC, me, and others.
Late last week, I contacted the owner of KSCO 1080 AM radio station out of Santa Cruz, Michael Zwerling. He immediately made a date to tour Drakes Bay Oyster Company with me on Tuesday, 12-11-12.
As a result of what he saw and heard, he is dedicating the entire two hours of his Saturday 12-15-12 show to the fight to save DBOC.
Tune in Saturday, Call in with your questions, or comments.
An archive of the program will be available on their website.
Sincerely,
Jane Gyorgy
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12/10/2012, 7:14 p.m. ET, Wall Street Journal Welcome to the Salazar Wilderness
Shame on the Interior Department for trying to drum a family-owned enterprise out of business.
“The Lunny family, which has made major improvements to the farm operation it took over in 2004, has been hounded for years by a National Park Service with a vendetta so chilling that any rancher on federal lands should be alarmed. Goaded by a clutch of environmental groups, the Park Service has resorted to tactics that might have come straight from Nixon’s dirty-tricks department. For instance, the Park Service alleged that the farm’s oyster boats disturbed the quiet of the area, but the measurements used were revealed to have been taken in New Jersey—and involved jet skis.”
To read the full article click on the link below or copy and paste it into your web browser:
Dear Matt,
Thank you for your email reminding me it is year end, and time to make tax deductible donations to non-profits that do “good”.
HOWEVER:
… NOT ONLY will I never give to the Sierra Club again, but I will campaign against the organization for the rest of my life! …
…I have removed myself from your subscription service, and I am recommending that all the true conservationists and social activists in my network give any planned year-end Sierra Club tax deductible donations to Drakes Bay Oyster Company of Point Reyes Station, CA 94956….
THE Sierra Club has replaced the hopes and dreams of a blessed Christmas with the grim reality of what a lump of coal is worth: a truly dismal and hungry New Year for the 30 employees of Drakes Bay Oyster Company and their extended families, as well as the local businesses who depend on local dollars….
Perhaps Sierra Club will join in helping the community recover from the loss of the most environmentally conscious, small scale oyster company on the Pacific Coast that was the core of the West Marin Local, Sustainable, Organic Foodie movement by sending an apology and donation to the Drakes Bay Oyster Company to help them support the hard working and long-dedicated employees who have already told their kids “Sorry, no money for Christmas this year.”
Regards,
M Ann Miller
5th Generation Farmer
Lifelong Conservationist
Versailles, Indiana, USA
For the full text of the letter click on or copy and paste the link below into your web browser:
http://oysterzone.wordpress.com/2012/12/11/12-11-2012-letter-to-sierra-club-to-cancel-membership-with-pledge-to-campaign-against/
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12-09-2012 Dick Spotswood: Oyster farm’s ouster signals end of all commercial agriculture in Point Reyes National Seashore
“THE DECISION by U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to shut the Lunny family’s oyster farm ultimately will spell the doom of all commercial agriculture on Point Reyes. Within the next 20 years you can bet that the remaining dairy and cattle ranches in the National Seashore will go the way of the dodo.
The existence of private cattle and dairy ranches seemingly offends environmental activists and Interior Department staffers. Most philosophically oppose any private sector involvement, no matter how benign or sustainable, on the peninsula.
Here’s how they’ll do the deed. They’ll contend that fecal runoff from dairy and beef cattle is raising nitrogen levels in Drakes Estero and Tomales Bay. They will assert that harms the newly pristine wilderness created when oyster harvesting was banned. Ergo, dairy and cattle ranches must go.”
To read the full article click on the link below or copy and paste it into your web browser:
https://oysterzone.wordpress.com/2012/12/09/2565/
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12-07-2012 National Review: A Shucking Shame!
The examples of bad science are abundant. In another report, Goodman discovered that the Park Service had claimed the oyster farm had an adverse effect on red-legged frogs, an endangered species. One problem: Red-legged frogs live in fresh water, not the salt water of the oyster farm. Goodman dug further and found that the Park Service was claiming that the presence of Drake’s Bay Oyster Co. put the red-legged frog at “increased risk for vehicle strikes.” In other words, the government was claiming that an endangered frog might somehow trek toward the seashore, cross a road, and get hit by a car on the half-mile path leading to the oyster farm.
Meanwhile, the Lunnys, working with lawyers from Cause of Action, have launched one final attempt to keep their farm. They say they were not afforded due process and have lost their property through arbitrary action of the government — both claims are constitutional. Furthermore, they allege that Interior violated the National Environmental Policy Act and that the Park Service violated its own rules. On Monday, the Lunnys filed for injunctive relief, which would allow them to continue to operate the farm until a court rules on the case.
To be sure, it’s an uphill battle. The Interior Department has millions of taxpayer dollars at its disposal. Meanwhile, the Lunnys are on the brink of bankruptcy.
To read the full article click on the link below or copy and paste it into your web browser:
http://oysterzone.wordpress.com/2012/12/08/12-07-2012-national-review-a-shucking-shame/
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12-07-2012 Marin IJ: Backlash Over Ouster of Oyster Farm Sends Message to D.C.
KEN SALAZAR is far from the most popular man in Marin right now.
The secretary of the U.S. Interior Department announced last week that the lease for the Drakes Bay Oyster Co. will not be renewed, ending 100 years of oyster farming in Drakes Estero.
His decision, while not a surprise, triggered a flood of local reaction that has mostly taken him to task.
The IJ has received more than 45 letters to the editor on the issue. They are running about 80 percent in favor of the oyster farm getting a longer lease on life. There also have been hundreds of comments posted on IJ stories online.
The outrage in Marin is genuine, but we don’t expect Salazar to change his mind, despite the reaction here and the lawsuit filed this week by Kevin Lunny, owner of Drakes Bay Oyster Co., and his supporters. Salazar and other federal officials knew this was a no-win situation, that the government would be sued regardless of his decision. They would rather deal with a lawsuit by an oyster farmer than with one by major environmental and conservation groups.
That doesn’t make his decision right. It just makes it political.
For the full article, click on the link below or copy and paste it into your web browser:
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12-06-2012 West Marin Citizen Editorials, Articles and Letters
The decision not to renew DBOC’s lease and evict within 90 days stunned our community. Below is a link to one of our two local papers. I invite you to read for yourself the reaction of our community.
Page 2, bottom right corner box titled “Local Reaction” the “Citizen Editorial Board” made this comment:
“….This edition of the Citizen includes numerous
letters, articles and columns in support
of DBOC and/or opposition to
Salazar’s decision, and none taking the opposite
view. This is not because of any editorial
bias on our part – it simply reflects
the material we have received, unsolicited….”
To read more from the edition, click on the link below or copy and paste it into your web browser:
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12-06-2012 Tess Elliott, editor of the Pulitzer Prize inning paper, “The Point Reyes Light” wrote the following article in this week’s edition of the paper:
Ordered to close, oyster farmer sues federal government
The Secretary’s decision was made on the eve of the expiration of the farm’s operating agreement with the National Park Service and a week after the release of the EIS.
To read the full article click on the link below or copy and paste it into your web browser:
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12-06-2012 Below is my original, full response, to the letter to the editor which appeared in both local weekly papers titled “A Time for Peace”, (West Marin Citizen, and Pulitzer Prize winning Point Reyes Light letter to the editor, November 29, 2012)
Dear Editor:
The signatories [of that letter] must remember: ”In order to have peace, one must work for justice.” 85 to 90% of us know the so-called “side that did not prevail” has not seen justice and must seek justice through Congress and the Courts – a right and duty we own as citizens of this country.
They want Marin County Board of Supervisor Steve Kinsey to represent both sides when the science, the data, and the truth, are omitted by the opposition? Then, when called on it, they proceed to defame the character of anyone who disagrees, and continue to manufacture and promulgate falsehoods, and we should all “reconcile” ourselves to Salazar’s decision?
- In that case, I suppose
- the founders of this country should have “reconciled” themselves to England’s rule over us;
- Lincoln should have “reconciled” himself to the segregationists
- the Suffragettes should have “reconciled” themselves to their lot in life, gone home, donned their aprons and gotten back to their housework
- and Roe should have “reconciled” herself to her pregnancy and had the baby
- They mention the damage “it” has done and want there to be a reconciliation
- “to cause to accept or to be resigned to something not desired (as to his/her fate)
- or to win over to friendliness, cause to become amicable”)
- but fail to recognize 85 to 90% of us (West Marinites and Marinites by all polls taken) are for the continuation of the farm.
Who is causing the damage to the community by insisting that 85 to 90% of us shut up and take it?
Jane Gyorgy
Point Reyes Station
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12-05-2012 Russian River Times article: Salazar brings Closure to oyster farm but no Closure to the Community:
“West Marin Rancher: ‘…As far as I’m concerned, NPS and its environmental henchmen are nothing more than a bunch of green collar criminals.’ ”
“Secretary Salazar must have told his staffers to get him in and out of Point Reyes as quickly as possible in his visit, one supposedly meant to decide the fate of the Lunny family’s operation. Contrast that with Prince Charles, who came to see W. Marin’s thriving sustainable agriculture, sat down to a lunch with many of the farmers and ranchers, with Kevin Lunny seated next to him”.
“One person I spoke to commented that this type of dishonest behavior and Salazar’s visit were rapidly becoming the poster child for why people have such a low opinion of government, and if local communities can’t trust that NPS will follow its own policies and previous decisions regarding West Marin, local governance becomes impossible.”
To read the full article click on the link below or copy and paste it into your web browser:
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12-05-12 IBD:
“The federal government wants California’s biggest oyster farm to shut down. Not because it’s broken the law or is irredeemably dirty. Washington just wants it to go away.”
To read the full article click on the link below or copy and paste it into your web browser:
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12/03/2012
DRAKES BAY OYSTER COMPANY PROMISES TO FIGHT NATIONAL PARK SERVICE DECISION
“We are …fighting…against a federal government that seems to value lies over the truth and special interests over the welfare of a community,” – Kevin Lunny, owner, DBOC
To read the full article click on the link below or copy and paste it into your web browser:
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11-29-2012 Marin IJ Editorial: Lease Should be Extended
…Lunny has been a good steward of the estero since he bought the operation from the Johnson family.
The National Park Service should not be rewarded for the disgraceful tactics it used in its fight to get rid of the oyster farm. That approach has made many in West Marin more distrustful of the motives of some federal park officials, which is unfortunate.
We hope a fair decision will allow all parties involved to move beyond this divisive issue.
We urge Secretary Salazar to allow Drakes Bay Oyster Co. to keep harvesting oysters in the estero for 10 more years.
For the complete article click the link below:
http://oysterzone.wordpress.com/2012/11/29/11-29-12-marin-ij-lease-should-be-extended/
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11-27-2012 The Final EIS is out, Secretary Salazar came to Drakes Estero, and a Secretarial “decision” is slated to be announced later this week.
DBOC reviewed the NPS Final EIS (FEIS) on the DBOC pending permit extension and just submitted comments to the Secretary. In the very short time available to review this 1000 page document, the sections on “sound” were reviewed because it was the only environmental impact determined by NPS to be MAJOR if the farm is allowed to continue. The NPS science in this $2 million EIS is false – it’s just plain wrong.
For the letter to Salazar from DBOC, click the link below:
2012-11-27-DBOC to Sec Salazar
For the Environ Comments Memo on the Final EIS, click the link below:
2012-11-27-ENVIRON DBOC_FEIS_Soundscape_Comments_Memo
For the Stoel (attorney’s) letter to Salazar, click the link below:
2012-11-27-Stoel letter to Sec Salazar
Your attention is directed to the ENVIRON letter and Dr. Goodman’s analysis.
According to ENVIRON:
ENVIRON LETTER.
“The soundscape impact analysis remains fundamentally flawed. It does not offer sufficiently coherent and correct information upon which to base informed decisions regarding noise impacts from the DBOC facility. The FEIS appears to be based more on pursuing a specific, preconceived result than in factually considering noise generated by the DBOC operations and transmission of such noise to other locations.”
“NPS has spent time and money developing an equally invalid, slanted, and incomplete assessment.”
“DBOC SOURCE NOISE LEVELS ARE STILL GROSSLY EXAGGERATED
The noise analysis reported in the DEIS relied on gross exaggerations of DBOC source noise levels based on misuse of data from measurements of other sources.”
NPS’s repeated, unsupported criticisms regarding the quality and utility of the ENVIRON sound level measurements are simply a disappointing attempt to cast doubt where none exists. In lieu of taking actual sound level measurements of the specific equipment whose noise it is attempting to assess, NPS instead opted to criticize but then essentially substantiate and then use the ENVIRON sound level measurement data representing DBOC equipment. At the same time NPS has continued to use an exaggerated range of possible equipment noise levels based on false comparisons with unrepresentative equipment.
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11-12-2012 LivestockForLandscapes blog posting: Fellow Farmer Needs Your Help
Below is a link to http://www.LivestockForLandscapes.com posting on their take on the situation.
Please click on the link below to read what they have to say.
Fellow Farmer Needs Your Help |.
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Watch the video: “The Framing of an Oyster Farm”
11-09-2012 Greenwire: Still no EIS as deadline looms.
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11-01-2012 Salazar honors Spanish Ship wreck, ignores Hispanic workers at DBOC
Secretary Salazar may wish to honor the first wreck of a Spanish ship in California, the San Augustín, but he has been flagrantly ignoring the struggle of today’s Hispanic food producers and shellfish harvesters to hang on to their jobs at Drakes Bay Oyster Company in Point Reyes National Seashore.
And yet, for more than six years, the jobs of Drakes Bay Oyster Company workers have been in jeopardy, largely because of the questionable science and policies fostered by the bureaucrat who Salazar tapped to be director of the national park service, Jon Jarvis.
Ethnobiologist, conservationist, and essayist
Honoring Achievements of Hispanic Food Producers, But No Engagement With Their Struggles
Posted: 11/01/2012 9:01 am
For the full text of the article click on the link below:
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10-30-2012 An Oyster in the Storm – NYTimes.com
“…as Hurricane Sandy bears down on me, I find I’m desperately missing one thing.
I wish I had some oysters.
I’m not talking about oysters to eat — although a dozen would be nice to go with that leftover bottle of Champagne that I really should drink if the fridge goes off. I’m talking about the oysters that once protected New Yorkers from storm surges, a bivalve population that numbered in the trillions and that played a critical role in stabilizing the shoreline from Washington to Boston.
Generation after generation of oyster larvae rooted themselves on layers of mature oyster shells for more than 7,000 years until enormous underwater reefs were built up around nearly every shore of greater New York.
Just as corals protect tropical islands, these oyster beds created undulation and contour on the harbor bottom that broke up wave action before it could pound the shore with its full force. Beds closer to shore clarified the water through their assiduous filtration (a single oyster can filter as much as 50 gallons of water a day); this allowed marsh grasses to grow, which in turn held the shores together with their extensive root structure.
….
Fortunately, the New York oyster is making something of a comeback. Ever since the Clean Water Act was passed in the 1970s, the harbor’s waters have been getting cleaner, and there is now enough dissolved oxygen in our waterways to support oyster life. In the last 10 years, limited sets of natural oyster larvae occurred in several different waterways that make up the Greater New York Bight.
Alongside nature’s efforts, a consortium of human-run organizations that include the Hudson River Foundation, New York-New Jersey Bay Keeper, the Harbor School and even the Army Corps of Engineers have worked together to put out a handful of test reefs throughout the Bight.”
For the full article click on the link below:
via An Oyster in the Storm – NYTimes.com.
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10-30-2012 Merging sex appeal and locally-harvested oysters, Petaluma residents Aluxa and Jazmine Lalicker want to educate Sonoma County gourmands about why the mollusk is not only tasty, but also good for the environment.
- By Karina Ioffee
- Email the author
- 4:43 pm
Four years ago, Aluxa Lalicker was working as a sea kayak guide in Tomales Bay, when she started bringing oysters along on her trips and serving them to her guests.
The treats were a hit, and lo and behold, a new business was born.
Today Lalicker is part of the Petaluma-basedThe Oyster Girls, a traveling oyster bar that is injecting femininity into a culinary sub-culture dominated by men.
“People think that oysters are dirty and hard to open, but that’s not true,” says the 30-year-old Lalicker. “It’s all about the technique.”
Lalicker runs the business with her 23-year-old sister Jazmine and their mom, often assisted by a group of girlfriends, serving up the tasty mollusks at Sonoma County wineries, galas, weddings and other events.
Often wearing dresses and high heels, the Lalicker girls ooze sex appeal that’s become part of their brand. (Their business card features a pin-up girl sitting inside an oyster shell.)
But they’re a lot more than just pretty faces.
The Lalickers take the time to travel to local oyster farms (Tomales Bay Oyster Company and Drakes Bay Oyster Company), going out on small motorboats to pick up the product, bring it back to land and spray wash it before taking it to a party.
“We don’t get paid for that part of the job, but we wanted to create that farm to table experience,” says Jazmine Lalicker. “It’s an important part of our business.”
For the full article, click on the link below:
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10-25-2012 Point Reyes Light, guest Column by Judy Teichman
“These “inconvenient truths” establish that the NPS cannot terminate shellfish cultivation in Drakes Estero by refusing to grant DBOF a special use permit to replace the expiring RUO for the land and facilities in the pastoral zone on the shores of Drakes Estero. Regardless of what happens with the onshore facilities, the state retains its reserved right to lease the Drakes Estero bottomlands for shellfish cultivation.”
For the full text of the article, click the link below:
http://oysterzone.wordpress.com/2012/10/27/10-25-2012-state-retains-right-to-drakes-estero/
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10-23-2012
Greenwire
The California Department of Fish and Game is pressuring the Interior Department to allow a California oyster farm to stay in a potential wilderness area, in the latest twist of a years-long controversy.
Until now, the state agency has stayed out of the debate over whether Interior should issue a new lease to Drakes Bay Oyster Co. when its current one expires Nov. 30. The farm has operated in Point Reyes National Seashore for decades; located in Drakes Estero, the farm straddles a “pastoral zone” set aside for ranchers and a “potential wilderness” area (Greenwire, Sept. 13).
But the state department has overseen the farm’s water bottom leases since California conveyed Drakes Estero to the federal government in 1965. That agreement underscores a long-held understanding, according to Fish and Game — namely, that California would be able to retain its fishing rights and allow the farm’s indefinite operation.
With less than six weeks until the farm’s lease expires, Interior has yet to release its final environmental impact statement. Salazar will consider the EIS in making his final decision.
But the draft EIS — which found that the farm would negatively affect the surrounding environment — has been controversial, with the oyster farm demanding that Interior redo it (Greenwire, Sept. 18). A report in August from the National Academy of Sciences found that a lack of evidence made the conclusions in the draft EIS significantly uncertain (Greenwire, Aug. 30).
For the full text of the Greenwire article click on the link below:
http://oysterzone.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/2248/
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10-21-2012
Marin IJ, Dick Spotswood
MARIN’S long-stewing “Oyster War” just got a bit spicier. Now the issue is state sovereignty versus federal jurisdiction.
On Oct. 10, after a bureaucratic tug-of-war, the state’s appointed Fish and Game Commission, with a little push from the governor’s office, got its staff to reluctantly issue a letter supporting continuation of aquaculture in Drakes Estero.
For the full article click the link below:
http://oysterzone.wordpress.com/2012/10/21/10-21-2012-pt-reyes-oyster-war-heats-up/
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10-18-2012
Point Reyes Light, News Briefs
An article declaring the threat of a “newly discovered” invasive species in Drakes Estero, published in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat and reprinted in the Marin Independent Journal this week, appears to be yet another hit piece churned out by wilderness advocates in the weeks leading up to the expiration of Drakes Bay Oyster Company’s lease.
For the complete brief, click on the link below:
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10-10-2012
Charlton Bonham, the Director of the State of California, Natural Resources Agency, Department of Fish and Game, in a letter to Point Reyes National Seashore Superintendent Cicely Muldoon, wrote to “encourage continued cooperation between the National Park Service, the California Department of Fish and Game (“Department”), and Drakes Bay Oyster Company….”
He cites the “47 years” of the two agencies having worked together “to allow continued aquaculture in Drakes Estero.” and “….fishing rights included the rights…for shellfish cultivation.”
He reminds her of the “…almost five decades, the State has supported aquaculture in Drakes Estero….” and that “continued cooperation … will benefit the environment, the community, and the local economy, consistent with our agencies’ unique history of managing this property….”
For the full text of the letter, click the link below:
DFG Muldoon_Drakes Bay Letter 10_10_12[1]
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10-09-2012
This raises major questions about the integrity of the pending IG’s investigation of NPS soundscape science at Drakes Estero.
“Washington, DC — A sizeable and growing segment of the investigators and supervisors within the Interior’s Department’s Office of Inspector General (IG) believes the office is pulling punches to avoid embarrassing the administration, according to new staff survey results posted today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). These concerns echo criticisms by Congress and PEER that under acting Inspector General Mary Kendall the Interior IG has compromised its “independence and honesty” to please political superiors, in the words of one agent.”
For Immediate Release: Oct 09, 2012
Contact: Kirsten Stade (202) 265-7337
Rising Doubts on Independence of Interior Inspector General
Staff Survey Shows Only 60% Believe IG Operates “Free from Improper Influence”
Posted on Oct 09, 2012 | Tags: DOI, Scientific Integrity
For the full article, click the link below:
https://oysterzone.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=2217&action=edit&message=1
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10-05-2012
Knight Professor of Journalism, Michael Pollen wrote to Senator Feinstein in support of Drakes Bay Oyster Company
“As a member of the Bay Area community and as a journalist who writes about the environment and sustainable agriculture, I’m writing in strong support of the Drakes Bay Oyster Company in Point Reyes. I have followed this saga for several years now, with a mounting sense of wonder and disappointment in the behavior of the Park Service. Drakes Bay is an important thread in the local sustainable food community, and it would be a shame – in fact an outrage – if the company were closed down as a result of the Park Service’s ideological rigidity and misuse of science….”
For the full text of the article, click the link below:
10-05-2012 Michael Pollen letter to Senator Feinstein
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10-04-2012
Cause of Action letter to Senators, House Members etc re Data Quality Act Complaint
Today, Cause of Action (CoA), a government watchdog nonprofit, sent a letter to a bi-partisan group of Senators, House Members and other elected officials including Senator Feinstein and Chairman Issa, and the Marin County Board of Supervisors, regarding the Data Quality Act (DQA) complaint which stated, “on August 7, 2012, the Lunnys and Dr. Goodman, with the assistance of Cause of Action, a nonprofit dedicated to fighting arbitrary federal overreach, filed a DQA complaint with the National Park Service for its intentional use of inaccurate, non-transparent, and deliberately misleading information. Federal law requires that NPS respond within 60 days to this complaint, and either begin the process of correcting its errors or explain why it will not.”
These public officials were informed by CoA that“on or before October 8, 2012, NPS must respond to DBOC’s challenge to the quality of data used in the DEIS.”
For the full story and the actual letters, click the link below:
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10-04-2012:
West Marin Citizen, Citizen’s Forum by Dr. Laura Watt: “ The nature of wilderness – past intentions for oyster farm’s future”
In my own research, reading through everything I’ve been able to find about the designation of wilderness at Point Reyes – the planning documents, comment letters from environmental organizations and members of the public, and testimony from Congressional hearings, as well as the formal bills and reports, and subsequent management plans – I have not come across any statements anticipating closure of the oyster farm in 2012.
In contrast, quite a number of statements suggest the opposite: that the oyster farm was intended to continue under potential wilderness designation, with no clear end point or expiration date. For instance, in the 1974 Final EIS for Proposed Wilderness (page 56), the NPS wrote, “This is the only oyster farm in the seashore. Control of the lease from the California Department of Fish and Game, with presumed renewal indefinitely, is within the rights reserved by the State on these submerged lands … and there is no foreseeable termination of this condition.”
By Laura Watt
Professor Laura Watt, Legislative and Administrative History Does Not Support NPS and Others Who Contend Oyster Farm to Close in 2012
for the Full article, click on the link below:
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John Hart: An Island in Time, 50 Years of Point Reyes National Seashore, 2012, Lighthouse Press
Pg 136
In 1976, the estero had been denied … full wilderness classification environmentalist sought and instead given a status never before mentioned in a law: “potential wilderness”. “…meant …would take instant effect IF the oyster farm departed. Did it also mean that the farm SHOULD depart?
The conservations of the day did not think so.
- Sierra Club: “The water area can be put under the Wilderness Act even while the oyster culture is continued – it will be a prior existing, non-conforming use.”
- The Citizens Advisory Commission: asked for specific language in the legislation to permit “operation of Johnson’s Oyster Farm including the use of motorboats and the repair and construction of oyster racks and other activities in conformance with the terms of the existing 1,000 acres lease from the State.
- Both houses of Congress at Senate Hearing on wilderness bill, said that the oysters should stay.
- Pete McCloskey and John Burton, authors of the original legislation confirm the intent to keep the oyster farm
Page 137:
A key advisor to the park, the Dept of Interior Field Solicitor in SF, had reviewed the record in 2004.
- Twenty years earlier, Ralph G. Mihan had underlined Congress’ “INTENTION TO MAINTAIN LAND-BASED AGRICULTURE IN THE PARK”.
- This time Mihan reported to Superintendent Neubacher: “The Park Service is mandated…to convert potential wilderness…to wilderness status as soon as the non-conforming use can be terminated.
- Congress, of course, can issue new instructions…and Senator Feinstein…did. In a rider attached to an appropriations bill, it authorized the Secretary of the Interior to renew the oyster company’s lease, on the existing terms, for a decade – if he chose.”
Emphasis added is mine.
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09-19-2012
A California oyster farm is demanding that the Interior Department redo a draft environmental impact statement, pointing to a recent study as proof that the review is so inadequate it “precludes meaningful analysis.”
10. NATIONAL PARKS:
Oyster farm at heart of wilderness battle demands fresh environmental review
For the complete article click the link below:
http://oysterzone.wordpress.com/2012/09/19/09-18-12-greenwire-reports-on-demand-for-new-seis/
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09-14-12
STOEL RIVES LLP, Attorneys at Law, letter to NPS:
“NEPA regulations are clear that a federal agency may not finalize a draft EIS that precludes meaningful analysis under 40 C.F.R. Section 1502.9(a). TheNRC Report demonstrates unequivocally that the DEIS fails to pass this basic test in a number of important ways. Accordingly, NPS will commit NEPA error if it finalizes the DEIS before preparing and re-circulating a Revised DEIS because the findings made in the NRC Report demonstrate that the DEIS is so inadequate as to preclude meaningful analysis….Instead NPS must now revise the DEIS, and re-circulate and seek public comment on the Revised DEIS.”
For the complete letter, click the link below:
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09-06-12
West Marin Citizen reports:
“Inverness resident and former Sierra Club representative Gordon Bennett has had his Sea Haven home red-tagged by the county for illegal building, county code enforcement officer Cristy Stanley said.”
Gordon Bennett caught without permits on massive illegal remodel and illegal construction at his home.
Inverness resident and former Sierra Club representative Gordon Bennett has had his Sea Haven home red-tagged by the county for illegal building, county code enforcement officer Cristy Stanley said.
Officials visited the property and issued the tag on August 3, noting that Mr. Bennett was attempting an unpermitted interior remodel and the construction of two decks.
A county official estimated that permits for similar jobs would cost somewhere in the neighborhood of several thousand dollars.
Ms. Stanley said Mr. Bennett or others at his property’s address were working on relocating a laundry room, remodeling a sun room, relocating a bathroom, and turning another bathroom into a pantry.
Officials met with Mr. Bennett, and sent an official letter notifying him of the violations on August 30. He must obtain permits by September 28, although Ms. Stanley said he is eligible for a 30-day extension.
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09-06-12
West Marin Citizen Lynn Axelrod: Natl Research Council finds NPS science defective
The latest report about Drakes Bay Oyster Company leaves a mark against the National Park Service’s science but says that adaptive management could help.
The National Research Council, an arm of the National Academies of Science, reviewed a Draft Environmental Impact Study (DEIS) on the potential effects of letting the oyster company stay in Drakes Estero another ten years. Its conclusions in total were not favorable for Point Reyes National Seashore’s attempt to remove the oyster company on environmental grounds.
DRAKES BAY OYSTERS
National Research Council finds science defective By Lynn Axelrod
For the full article
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09-06-12
Pt Reyes Light: Academy finds oyster DEIS Lacking
“An answer to whether or not Drake’s Bay Oyster Company is harming the environment remains elusive, as the National Academy of Sciences last week judged evidence in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) issued by the National Park Service to be insufficient.”
Academy finds oyster DEIS lacking
For the full article:
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09-03-12
Assoc. Press. “New York’s new environmental hero – the oyster!!!
09-02-12 Associate Press, Verena Dobnik
Marine scientists …, say mollusks planted in waters off New York and other cities could go a long way toward cleaning up America’s polluted urban environment. The oyster and other shellfish can slurp up toxins and eliminate decades of dirt.
Landscape architect Kate Orff has a name for the work she does at her Scape firm: Oyster-tecture. Orff is designing a park and a living reef for the mouth of Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal, where oysters could take hold and help filter one of the nation’s most polluted waterways.
“My new hero is the oyster, with its biological power,” Orff says.
The Oyster Restoration Research Project, a New York-based nonprofit umbrella group, partners with the NY/NJ Baykeeper ecology advocate working at the Bronx site, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that built an oyster reef on Governors Island off Manhattan.
While oysters are cultivated around the world, the United States has some of the best regeneration programs, says Bill Goldsborough, director of fisheries program at Chesapeake Bay Foundation in Annapolis, Md. The bay is a center of natural oyster growth, and regeneration is thriving just outside urban Annapolis and in Baltimore harbor.
Oyster-tecture is a 21st-century approach to creating new waterfront infrastructures where long-gone shellfish can be brought back.
Rich and poor New Yorkers and visitors dined on them in a maritime metropolis filled with vessels and street vendors hawking roasted oysters, long before hot dogs. But they slowly died out by the turn of the 19th century, overwhelmed by industrial waste, sewage, diseases and the dredging of the harbor to make room for shipping and development.
Now, new beds of oysters for New York’s broken-down ecosystem are budding in more than a half dozen locations in the area. If the water temperature, currents, chemistry and other conditions are right, the bivalve can break down the pollution and thrive. But while suitable for cleanup work, they should not be eaten and poachers should not harvest polluted oysters and sell them for profit.
“The question is ‘how can we use the natural processes of organisms that were once here in abundance,’” she says. If oyster regeneration can be sustained and expanded, “it’s the ultimate success story for one of the most urban and heavily used harbors in the world.”
Grizzle says the oyster is the perfect aquatic engineer for the job. It pumps water to feed, retains any polluted particles and releases the rest — purified. Each one filters about 50 gallons of water a day.
“There’s no human engineering substitute for these living things that clean the water,” he says as he wades hundreds of feet back to the South Bronx shore.
For the full story:
08-30-12 Greenwire: Park Service must make lack of data plain in oyster case — NAS
Emily Yehle, E&E reporter
Published: Thursday, August 30, 2012
The National Park Service should make it clear in an upcoming environmental impact statement that it does not have enough information to establish a California oyster farm’s impact on the environment, according to a new report from the National Academy of Sciences.
For the full text of the article: http://oysterzone.wordpress.com/2012/08/30/08-30-12-nas-report-stunning-rebuke-of-nps/
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08-30-12
NAS REPORT: STUNNING REBUKE OF NPS
The NAS study will be released TODAY.
NPS will not like it.
After six years – the NPS STILL does not have DATA to support its claims.
This is a stunning rebuke of the National Park Service – Again!
The media were informed yesterday (Wednesday) afternoon and provided the report (except, of course, the Point Reyes Light and the West Marin Citizen – both were black-balled, undoubtedly at NPS’ direction). No slight too small!!
To fully understand what is now happening, a little history is in order.
For the full article: http://oysterzone.wordpress.com/2012/08/30/08-30-12-nas-report-stunning-rebuke-of-nps/
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08-20-12
Referencing the complaint requesting correction of specific items in dEIS and in the Atkins final Report, the “Information Collection Clearance Officer of the NPS Business Services Directorate stated:
“Your complaint has been referred, and will be evaluated, and you will be notified in accordance with the provisions of National Park Service Director’s Order #11 B: Ensuring Quality of Information Disseminated by the National Park Service and Department of the Interior Information Quality Guidelines.”
For the full text of the letter:
IQ-Cause-Interim-08-20-12
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08-09-12
Point Reyes Light retracts story
“Regrettably we (Point Reyes Light) failed to dig deep enough, and as a result we missed puzzling statements in the letter that, among other things, reverse Dr. Ragen’s (Executive Director, Marine Mammal Commission) official position on the impacts of mariculture on harbor seals in Drakes Estero. In other words, we missed the story.”
In private letter, Tim Ragen admits no evidence for seal study
Point Reyes Light, August 9, 2012
EDITORIAL – By Tess Elliott
For the full article click on this link:
http://oysterzone.wordpress.com/2012/08/09/08-09-12-point-reyes-light-retracts-story-and-admits-missed-statements-reversing-ragens-official-position/
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08-07-2012,
a Data Quality Act Complaint was filed with the National Park Service by Dr. Corey Goodman and Kevin and Nancy Lunny, owners, Drakes Bay Oyster Company to make corrections as required by law and policy in the NPS Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) and the Atkins Final Peer Review (March 2012).
Summary of Complaint
To comply with applicable minimum information-quality standards, all scientific information that NPS disseminates in publications such as the DEIS and Atkins Peer Review Report must be, among other things, accurate and timely; based on the best available science and supporting studies and the most current information available; highly transparent; supported by reliable data, including on-site data when required by law; consistent with sound and accepted scientific practices and policies; evidence-based; reproducible by qualified third parties; and objective and unbiased in terms of both presentation and substance.
NPS can only claim that Alternative A is the “environmentally preferred alternative” because it flagrantly and repeatedly failed to comply with these minimum information-quality standards. Conclusions in the DEIS that DBOC causes “major” long-term adverse impacts on Drakes Estero’s “soundscape” and “wilderness” are based on inaccurate, nontransparent, false, and misleading data and analysis that violates NPS’s information-quality guidelines, as are claims that DBOC causes “moderate” long-term adverse impacts on Drakes Estero’s “harbor seals,” “birds and bird habitat,” and “visitor and recreation experience.” If the DEIS is corrected to meet basic minimum information-quality standards, it becomes clear that DBOC’s operations do not have long-term adverse impacts on Drakes Estero’s environment.
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08-02-2012
West Marin Citizen
Letter to the Editor
Estero ecology
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07-26-12
russianrivertimes | Just another WordPress.com site.
“We cannot overemphasize how damaging NPS behavior has been to the local public’s perception of federal science and policy, not only regarding the oyster farm, but a host of other issues. NPS and its consultants are asking us to believe that a 300-fold error in sound footprint, as shown in the previous graphic, makes no difference to the conclusions of the EIS. This is clearly stated in a May 7, 2012 letter from peer review consultant ATKINS to Dr. Ralph Morgenweck. DOI Scientific Integrity Officer. Essentially, having been caught with their hand in the data jar, the NPS consultant abdicates responsibility by saying that the EIS is fine, no one is wrong, it’s too complicated and that tired, over-used scientific excuse, ‘further research is required’. It never addresses the huge errors caused by the bogus NPS data nor its origin. The citizens of West Marin and the general public know when they are being lied to by NPS and its consultants. We look to your panel to protect us from this kind of scientific dishonesty and abuse of policy.”
For the full article, please click on the link above.
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07-10-12
I took the opportunity to travel to Irvine to have 5 minutes in front of the new NAS NRC panel on Tuesday, July 10, 2012, University of California Irvine, Beckman Center. click the link below for more information on how that meeting went.
Questions of Fundamentally Sound and Materially Sufficient for Blog
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06-23-12
Marin Voice: More evidence of state’s authority over Drakes Estero oyster beds
“(Fish and Game) Commissioner Michael Sutton: “Our jurisdiction in this matter is clear. We have exercised it in the form of a lease … We … confirm that … we support our continuing authority … and our support for the lease in Drakes Estero.”
(Fish and Game ) Commissioner Richard B. Rogers: “I agree … here is a strong affirmation, a message from the commission … We believe the water-bottom lease should continue until 2029. … We control those bottoms, not the National Park Service…”
THE EXTREME ideologues, intent upon shucking the entire Drakes Estero oyster farm, are now attacking California’s most respected officeholder, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, for trying to save aquaculture production in Point Reyes.
Extreme ideologues have trouble accepting facts.
That goes with the mindset of Marin Voice author Gordon Bennett (IJ, June 14) but it provides an opportunity to again set forth some irrefutable facts.
The newest fact is that the California Fish and Game Commission, exercising its constitutionally granted authority, has again asserted its jurisdiction over Drakes Estero oyster beds at its May meeting in Monterey.”
For the complete article, click on the link below:
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05-16-12
Russian River Times, Unsound Advice: NPS and its Drakes Estero DEIS Consultant
“In the Drakes Estero DEIS, no reasons are given for selecting the jet ski sound, and the even more distorting substitution of construction-equipment sound data for actual oyster equipment. This fact places these questions before the IG’s investigation: who at NPS or VBH is responsible for the decision not to make actual measurements of the DBOC equipment; who selected the 1995 Jet Ski and other imported data; and what was their rationale for doing so.
The imported data selected for the DEIS produces results claiming to show negative impact over the entire estero, covering all the seal haul-out areas. However, NPS has run through five generations of hypotheses of harm to establish a negative link between oyster-farm activity and seal populations but failed in every instance.”
For the full article, copy and paste the link below into your web browser:
http://russianrivertimes.wordpress.com/2012/05/16/unsound-advice-nps-and-its-draft-environmental-impact-statement-consultantnt/
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05-08-12
Russian River Times: Counterfeiting Science – National Park Service vs. Sound Scientific Data
A review of the current Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for Drake’s Estero reveals the nature of National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis’ war on the scientific method. The scientific method involves observation, hypothesis, analysis and verification. In Jarvis’ case, NPS observation is driven by his version of policy, coupled with refusal to engage in open dialogue on the analysis, and concealment and manipulation of data that would prevent them from verifying their claims.
“Once again, NPS created a new hypothesis of harm, in this case the supposedly highly negative impact of sound on wildlife and wilderness from Drake’s Bay Oyster Company. However, this latest allegation cannot survive even the most cursory examination without collapsing in a way that raises serious questions as to the integrity of Jarvis’ management of Park Service Science….Worse, the NPS had research data in hand that directly discredited their hypothesis of harm.”
For the full article, copy and paste this link into your web browser:
http://russianrivertimes.wordpress.com/2012/05/08/national-park-service-vs-sound-scientific-data/
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04-11-12
Greenwire: Good Enough for Government Work
To PEER executive director Jeff Ruch, the debate over the noise data is irrelevant. The draft EIS is “good enough for government work,” he said.
For the full text of the article, click the link below:
04-11-12 Greenwire Good enough for government work
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04-03-12
Russian River Times: National Park Service Sounds Off
“The ongoing science controversy surrounding Drake’s Estero raises a critical question. If the Department of Interior cannot assure scientific integrity in a case representing a tiny oyster farm in a National Park, how can they ensure integrity in the management of the Nation’s resources where billions of dollars are involved in leases to the oil, gas and other extractive industries that benefit from access to public lands?”
For the full text of the article copy and paste the link below into your web browser:
http://russianrivertimes.wordpress.com/2012/04/03/national-park-service-sounds-off/
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03-30-12
National Parks Traveler: PRNS Staff Accused of More Wrongdoing
“… the California Democrat [Senator Dianne Feinstein] … says the Park Service relied on data collected by New Jersey State Police 17 years ago in describing noise from the oyster company’s boats.”
As proof the senator points to a June 2011 version of the seashore’s draft Environmental Impact Statement on the oyster company’s operations. In that document there’s a table pertaining to “noise generation” from oyster company boats operating in Drakes Estero at Point Reyes. The table clearly states that the source for “sound estimations” came from New Jersey State Police tests on marine craft from 1995.
“I am frankly stunned that after all the controversy over past abuse of science on this issue, Park Service employees would feel emboldened to once again fabricate the science in building a case against the oyster company,” wrote the senator in a letter (attached below) sent Thursday. “I can only attribute this conduct to an unwavering bias against the oyster company and historic ranches.”
For the full text of the National Parks Traveler article, please click the link below.
03-30-2012 NPT PRNS Staff Accused of More Wrongdoing in Measuring Imapcts of Oyster Farm
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03-29-12
Senator Dianne Feinstein Letter to Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar
“…the straw that breaks the camel’s back…”
Senator Dianne Feinstein in a strongly worded letter to Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, spells out the deception by the National Park Service and the falsification of data by the National Park Service as it relates to Drakes Bay Oyster Company and demands renewal of the lease as the only solution.
For the full text of the honorable Senator’s letter, please click the link below:
03-29-12 Feinstein letter to Salazar re NPS Repeated Misconduct
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03-28-12
ABC7 – Assignment 7
Wednesday, March 28, 2012, Ken Miguel of ABC 7 news exposed more National Park Service’s deceptive attempts to victimize Drakes Bay Oyster Company.
For the full video and text, please copy and paste the link below into your web browser.
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/assignment_7&id=8599796
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03-27-12
Greenwire: NPS noise data for CA oyster farm based on 1995 study in New Jersey
“The mystery over how NPS came to its estimates lingers. Interior is refusing to detail how NPS extrapolated the sound levels of the farm’s equipment from the 1995 New Jersey study and a 2006 “Construction Noise Users Guide” from the Federal Highway Administration.”
For the full text, please copy and paste the link below into your web browser.
03-27-12 Greenwire NPS noise data for CA oyster farm based on 1995 study in NJ
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03-26-12
NPS used falsified acoustic data to deceive the Public and a Peer Review of the dEIS
For the full letter, double click on the link below (this is a large file and takes a little longer to upload):
NPS DEIS and ATKINS review soundscape deception.9.2MB
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03-26-12
Dr. Goodman letter to Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar RE: Falsified Data in dEIS AND Peer Review
For the full text of the letter, click on the link below
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02-13-12
US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works article
As part of their ongoing investigation into the scientific misconduct within the Obama Administration, Senator David Vitter (R-La.) and Senator James Inhofe, Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, sent a letter today to Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar asking him to explain why he consistently ignored serious complaints regarding the scientific integrity of the Director of the National Park Service (NPS) Jon Jarvis, and why these allegations were not addressed during Mr. Jarvis’ nomination process.
For the full story, click on this link:
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02-13-12
Letter from Senators Vitter and Inhofe to Salazar
Senators Vitter and Inhofe to Secretary Salazar:
“On three occasions in 2009, while the Jarvis nomination was being vetted, Dr. Corey Goodman, an elected NAS member, submitted three letters to you detailing a case of serial scientific misconduct by Jon Jarvis and NPS officials and scientists under his direct supervision…We are in possession of the three letters dates April 27, 2009, May 10, 2009 and May 16,2009. That a distinguished member of the NAS would need to send such letters of concern to you directly is distressing. Even more distressing is the fact that you have failed to respond.”
For the full text of the letter, click the link below:
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12-23-11
National Parks Traveler RE: Congress wants NAS to Review Studies at PRNS and inserted language in an appropriations bill
This language directs the NPS to use the NAS to evaluate the PRNS science.
For the full text of the article, click on the link below:
NPT article on language in an appropriations bill to have NAS evaluate PRNS science
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12-18-2011
Gary P Nabhan and Jeffrey A Creque article in SF Gate
“…potential wilderness, agriculture, ranching and mariculture all co-equal management objectives.”
For the full text of the article, click on the link below:
Drakes Estero Oyster Farm a Natural Fit
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12/10/2011
API ABC News: NorCal Oyster Farm Dispute Spreads to Capitol Hill
“…scrutiny of the research unearthed errors and omissions that critics say showed the park officials had an agenda of getting rid of the oyster farm.”
For the complete article, copy and paste this link into your web browser:
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12/10/2011
Marin Voice: Former Assemblyman [Author of AB 1024] Says Original Legislation Favors Oyster Farm
“…October 22, 1965 letter from the director of the Department of Fish and Game to the superintendent of the Point Reyes National Seashore stating that since [Assembly Bill] AB 1024 ‘reserved fishing rights to the state, (it) appears all state laws and regulations pertaining to shellfish cultivation remain in effect [and thus] are applicable to the Johnson Oyster Company.’ On March 25, 1966 Superintendent Leslie Arnberger responded: ‘This office is quite agreeable with your) interpretation…” All of this was confirmed by the National Park Service in a 1974 environmental review of possible wilderness status: ‘…control of the lease…from the California Department of Fish and Game, with a renewal indefinitely, is within the rights reserved by the State.’
Folks who wish to change history or legal rights should not try to do so while the author is still alive.”
For the full article, click on the link below:
12-10-11 Former Assemblyman Says Original Legislation Favors Oyster Farm
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12/08/2011
7700 letters – 47 States, 29 Countries in Support DBOC – Delivered to PRNS
For the full letter, click on the link below:
20111208 DBOC 7700 letters to PRNS
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12/07/2011
University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources Cooperative Extension
Marin County Weighs In with a letter to PRNS and Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
“As co-authors of the 2009 report ‘The Changing Role of Agriculture in Point Reyes National Seashore”….We find each of the alternatives presented in the DEIS unacceptable
as they conflict with local and state agricultural policy, disregard many of the values and purposes for which PRNS was established, minimize the importance of jobs to the 28% of local Hispanic workers who would eventually be unemployed by closure of DBOC, dismiss the importance and value of the visitor experience that DBOC provides, and minimize the value of DBOC’s oyster production to Marin County’s agricultural economy, to local food, and to the Bay Area’s shellfish supply. We also find the suggestion that DBOC’s continued operation poses any risk to Myrtle’s silverspot butterflies, California red-legged frogs, and California Coho salmon and Central California steelhead trout to be unreasonable and without merit.
Eventual cessation of shellfish production at DBOC would have severe negative consequences for our community and we support a preferred alternative that would allow continued renewal of DBOC’s lease, such as the Collaborative Alternative proposed by the Alliance for Local Sustainable Agriculture.“
For the full letter, click on the link below (this is a large document and depending on your internet speed will take a little longer to download):
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12/06/11
Co-Founders of Malt Weigh In
“Marin County’s agriculture and open space, whether publicly or privately held, are inextricably interconnected. The balance is tenuous, and it’s not unfathomable that all of it—the park, open space, organic food, agritourism—could rapidly evaporate. Once Drake’s Bay Oyster Company gets forced out, there will be a clear road map for eliminating the rest of agriculture in the Point Reyes National Seashore. As the farming dominos fall, so will critical mass of agricultural infrastructure, making the future of Marin agriculture increasingly uncertain, putting at risk all of our hard-won gains. In short, productive farming is critical to preserving open space.”
For the full article, click on the link below:
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12/04/2011
Drakes Bay Oyster Company Special Use Permit:
The Collaborative management Alternative – a Ten-Year Special Use Permit with Option for Extension; Rehabilitation of Existing Facilities; and Construction of New Processing Facilities
For full text, click on the link below:
Collaborative Management Alternative
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12/01/2011
The three largest and longest operating local kayaking companies (Blue Waters Kayaking, Inverness; Point Reyes Outdoors, Point Reyes Station; Sea Trek Company, Sausalito) state the dEIS misrepresented the wilderness experience they have consistently encountered over the years and that they have been misrepresented within the dEIS.
“During our many kayak outings on the Estero, the ‘soundscape’ of the wilderness area has not been impacted by the noise of the [oyster] farm.”
For the full text of their letter, click on the link below:
Local kayaking companies DEIS comment letter
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11/30/2011
Fighting Climate Change WITH OYSTERS!
Oysters also absorb carbon, but their real talent is filtering nitrogen out of the water column. Nitrogen is the greenhouse gas you don’t pay attention to — it is nearly 300 times as potent as carbon dioxide, and according to the journal Nature, the second worst in terms of having already exceeded a maximum “planetary boundary.” Like carbon, nitrogen is an essential part of life — plants, animals, and bacteria all need it to survive — but too much has a devastating effect on our land and ocean ecosystems.
Oysters to the rescue. One oyster filters 30-50 gallons of water a day — and in the process filters nitrogen out of the water column. Recent work done by Roger Newell of the University of Maryland shows that a healthy oyster habitat can reduce total added nitrogen by up to 20 percent. A three-acre oyster farm filters out the equivalent nitrogen load produced by 35 coastal inhabitants (PDF).
For more on this, copy and past the link below into your web browser:
http://oysterzone.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/fighting-climate-change-with-oysters/
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11-28-11
Russian River Times: National Enviro Group Smears Local Oyster Farm
“The Drake’s Bay situation points out the need for national organizations … to be responsible for their actions at the local level, or the integrity of the environmental movement will continue to be divided and compromised…. More importantly, it shows how the NPS, without a proper watchdog or national policy for agriculture and mariculture within the parks, places rural communities and their citizens at the whim of the local Park Superintendent. Over a third of the 400-some national parks, monuments and seashores contain culturally significant working landscapes. In the case of Drake’s Estero, the Superintendent flip-flopped from planning a multi-million dollar upgrade of the oyster farm facilities, signing off that it didn’t require any action under state and federal environmental laws, to conducting a highly questionable campaign to get rid of DBOC. His actions resulted in millions of taxpayer dollars spent on reports, studies, staff time and environmental impact statements, and has yet to produce any data showing that the oyster farm is detrimental to the Estero.”
For the complete article, click the link below:
http://russianrivertimes.wordpress.com/2011/11/28/national-enviro-group-smears-local-oyster-farm/
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10/31/2011
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, PEER, reports conflicts of interest by Jon Jarvis, Director of the National Park Service.
“The Director of the Park Service is awash in both the appearance and the actuality of conflicts – and he knows it.”
For the full article, click on the link below:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/823/t/0/blastContent.jsp?email_blast_KEY=1229321
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10/30/11
Invitation to Paul D. Berkowitz, former criminal investigator for the NPS, whistle-blower turned author, and Pete McCloskey, In Conversation
http://oysterzone.wordpress.com/2011/10/28/10302011-paul-berkowitz-and-pete-mccloskey-in-conversation/
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10-30-11
Book Review by Dave Mitchell, former editor of Pulitzer Prize Winning weekly, Point Reyes Light Newspaper
“‘The Case of the Indian Trader’ illuminates the case of the oyster grower.”
For the full review, click on the link below:
The Case of the Indian Trader review by Dave Mitchell 10-30-11
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10/28/2011
Huffington Post, Bad Science Leads to Bad Policy by Dr. Peter Gleick
“the National Park Service, the Department of the Interior (DOI), and some local environmental supporters (with whom I usually have strong common cause) have manipulated science in their efforts to close the farm. A series of reports have been issued with bad, incomplete, misleading, or cherry-picked evidence of impacts to seagrasses, water quality, fish diversity, and especially seals. These reports have been highly criticized by independent scientists, including the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. And data that contradicts their own studies have been withheld by the Park Service, including over 200,000 photographs from hidden cameras they set up to monitor disturbances caused by the oyster farm, but which now reportedly show no evidence of such disturbances.
An internal DOI report (the “Frost Report“) on this debacle was released earlier this year. That report acknowledged that the scientific arguments of damage from the oyster farm were false, and criticized withholding and cherry-picking data in public reports; writing journal articles with incomplete or wrong data; failing to present complete materials, data, and scientific observations to a National Academy of Sciences Committee, even after multiple requests; and issuing repeatedly false public statements. The Report found a “willingness to allow subjective beliefs and values to guide scientific conclusions,” the use of “subjective conclusions, vague temporal and geographic references, and questionable mathematical calculations,” and “misconduct [that] arose from incomplete and biased evaluation and from blurring the line between exploration and advocacy through research.” A separate National Academy of Sciences review found that the Park Service “selectively presented, over-interpreted, or misrepresented the available science on the potential impacts of the oyster mariculture operation.” Senator Dianne Feinstein, to her credit, has weighed in demanding a return to scientific integrity….
Science is not democratic or republican. Scientific integrity, logic, reason, and the scientific method are core to the strength of our nation. We may disagree among ourselves about matters of opinion and policy, but we (and our elected representatives) must not misuse, hide, or misrepresent science and fact in service of our political wars.”
For the complete article, click on the link below:
http://oysterzone.wordpress.com/2011/10/28/bad-science-leads-to-bad-policy-huffington-post-10282011/
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10/28/11
National Parks Traveller article on House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Investigation
“Questionable actions the staff of Point Reyes National Seashore has taken towards the Drakes Bay Oyster Co. have drawn the attention of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which is launching an investigation into the fate of the oyster company.”
For the full text of the article, click on the link below:
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10/27/2011
E&E News PM, Issa Probe Targets NPS Scientists Work on California Oyster Farm
“Drakes Bay Oyster Co., which has operated for almost 90 years on Point Reyes National Seashore, is nearing the end of its 40-year lease. As NPS considers whether to allow the company to stay in a national wilderness area, deliberations have sparked fierce debate over whether the farm’s continued operations would harm harbor seals.
NPS scientists say the farm upsets the breeding of nearby seals, but their research has been called into question by several independent panels and outside scientists.
Now, that evidence will come under the review of the Oversight Committee’s Republicans.”
For the complete article, click on the link below:
http://oysterzone.wordpress.com/2011/10/28/ee-article-10272011/
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10/27/2011
Dr. Gleick and Dr. Raymond Defend Dr. Goodman
“Several eminent scientists have participated with Dr. Goodman in his analyses, …. no eminent scientists have successfully disputed Dr. Goodman’s analysis.
We are both elected members of the National Academy of Sciences. One of us is a MacArthur Fellow and President of the Pacific Institute. The other is Chancellor’s Professor of Chemistry at U.C. Berkeley. Gleick also serves as chair of the American GeophysicalUnion’s Task Force on Scientific Integrity. Both of us have reviewed the NPS science, and are deeply disturbed by its bias, unsupported characterizations, and misrepresentations….
Scientists are often reluctant to enter the public fray precisely because we prefer to argue facts and numbers and analysis in cases when personal attacks, vitriol, and emotion dominate. Indeed, other scientists have told us they do not want to see their good names dragged through the mud by the same kind of vicious attacks that Park supporters have launched against Dr. Goodman. We admire Dr. Goodman for his courage. We stand with him on the side of scientific integrity.
It is time for the NPS to respond directly and publicly to his criticisms or their flawed work should be retracted. Allowing the draft Environmental Impact Statement to cite this so-called science while the NPS scientists refuse to publicly debate it is a disservice to the community and to science. Independent of the debate over the oyster farm, if the decision is tainted with bad science, we all lose.”
For the complete letter, click on the link below:
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10/20/11
Republican Congressman, Darrell Issa, Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform sent a letter to Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar of formal announcement of a Congressional investigation
Issa, former founder and CEO of Directed Electronics named entrepreneur of the year by Inc. magazine, Member of the House Judiciary Committee, requested all documents by noon 11/04/11, and the appearance in Washington for “transcribed interviews” as of 11-07-11.
Called to appear are NPS officials, scientists, and a DOI solicitor, namely:
- Gavin Frost, Solicitor’s Office
- Jonathon Jarvis, NPS Director
- Don Neubacher, Former Superintendent, 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
- Cicely Muldoon, Superintendent, Point Reyes National Seashore
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10/20/11
West Marin Citizen Reports on Informal Poll on fate of DBOC
“We asked men and women of West Marin their opinions on whether Drake’s Bay Oyster Company should be allowed to continue operations in Drake’s Estero,” the pair said. “We sent the poll to our list of 323 West Marinites.”
The results? The people of West Marin, 88% of women and 93% of men, overwhelmingly support DBOC. That translates into 246 out of the 323 polled.”
For the full text of the article, click on the link below:
http://oysterzone.wordpress.com/2011/10/28/west-marin-citizen-reports-on-informal-poll-10202011/
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10/01/11
Seattle Times, Mount Rainier Park Ex-Official Scrutinized on Land Deal
“National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis, a former Rainier superintendent, not only signed Uberuaga’s 2008 letter of reprimand but also approved his latest promotion.
Yet Uberuaga said the investigation and subsequent reprimand never came up during interviews for his new job, which comes with a $7,000 pay increase, to $153,000 a year.
Jarvis declined repeated interview requests, and the Park Service refused to release any of its records related to the investigation.”
For the full text of the article, click on the link below:
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09/01/11
Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, letter to Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, requests delay of publication of the draft EIS
Senator Feinstein, Chairman Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Member Senate Appropriations Committee, Chairman Subcommittee on Energy & Water, Member of Senate Committee on Judiciary, Member of Senate Committee on Rules & Administration, stated:
“Several reports have shown that Point Reyes scientists have not been objective in their analysis of harbor seal impacts in Drakes Estero….
….The Draft Environmental Impact Statement must incorporate the findings of a review of the Park Service’s scientific work when it is in question especially given their history of misrepresenting science. I fear that unless the Department of the Interior stands behind the independent analysis of this scientific paper, then it will be another example of a lack of credibility at Point Reyes National Seashore. The delay would only be approximately one month, but not incorporating the Marin Mammal Commission’s report would threaten the validity of the environmental review.”
For the full text of the letter, click on the link below:
Feinstein letter to Salazar letter 09-02-11
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08/11/11
Pete McCloskey, Bagley, Burton letter to Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar
Pete McCloskey is a former Republican Congressman, now Democrat, Co-Founder of Earth Day, Author of Endangered Species Act, 2006 Recipient of Sierra Club Edgar Wayburn Award, 2010 Recipient of Sierra Club Environmental Hero Award, and co-author of 1976 Point Reyes Wilderness Act.
William T. Bagley is a former Assemblyman, and co-author of 1976 Point Reyes Wilderness Act.
John L. Burton is a former Congressman co-author of 1976 Point Reyes Wilderness Act.
on August 11, 2011, wrote a letter explaining the original intent of the 1976 Wilderness Act was to protect and preserve the ranches, dairies and oyster farm when designing the Point Reyes Wilderness Area. Also:
“It seems highly possible to us that there are elements in the Park Service Administration, which have had a secret agenda for some years to drive out not only the oyster farm, but the privately-leased ranches as well. There have been a whole series of small impositions on the ranchers which serve to make their operations more difficult. As of last weekend, for example, the Park Service had made no attempt to keep the eild tule elk herds in the northern wilderness section of the Seashore from breaking out onto the cattle ranches in the pastoral zone.
We think it might go a long way to restore public confidence in the Park Service to hold appropriate congressional committee hearings to ascertain why the Service seems dedicated setting aside the words of Director Wirth of fifty years ago, and the testimony of Congressman Burton and Senator Tunney and the words of former Assistant Secretary Nat Reed regarding the 1976 Wilderness Act.”
For the full text of the letter, click on the link below:
Pete McCloskey Letter to Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar re DBOC 08-11-11
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08-11/11
Exhibits accompanying McCloskey letter to Salazar of 08/11/11
For the full text of the exhibits, click on the link below:
McCloskey to Salazar re DBOC 08-11-11 Exhibits accompanying letter to Salazar
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03-26-11
The Lunnys letter to Natalie Gates of PRNS regarding Geeen House Gas Emmissions and DBOC
For the full text of the letter, click on the link below:
DBOC to PRNS re GHG Emmissions 03-26-11
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05-11-2009
DBOC Letter to Jon Jarvis
“We were heartened by the NPS apology. But a few words in a press release, unfortunately, will
not restore our good name — and neither will it absolve NPS of its responsibility to take
responsibility for the damage it has done to us and to itself. NPS must clean up the situation it
has created for our family and our community, starting with correcting the record of false NPS
claims.
We ask that you, in good faith, please clarify this immediately and provide detailed and complete
answers to the questions set forth in this letter.”
For the full text of the letter, copy and past the link below into your web browser:
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04-30-2009
Pulitzer Prize winner Dave Mitchel on Why Drakes Estero can never become wilderness
Because the bottomlands of Drakes Estero are under the jurisdiction of the State of California, which by law must forever protect them for fishing, including aquaculture, they can never become part of a Wilderness Area of the National Park Service.
This legal fact may in the long run be the main obstacle to the Point Reyes National Seashore administration’s machinations to close Drakes Bay Oyster Company three years from now.
For the full article click on the link below or copy and paste the link into your web browser.
http://www.sparselysageandtimely.com/blog/?p=2820
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04-23-2009
an Attorney’s brief re: Drakes Estero
”In reality, continuation of prior nonconforming uses in wilderness and potential wilderness areas is not infrequent. Continuation of prior nonconforming uses does not in and of itself encourage the spread of new incursions because they are by definition “preexisting.” On the contrary, allowing prior nonconforming uses in wilderness or potential wilderness areas encourages the enlargement of wilderness because it enables creation of wilderness areas without the destruction of beneficial preexisting activities.
The NPS is required to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement in connection with update of the 1980 General Management Plan. Unless NPS forces DBOC out in the meantime, a full and accurate environmental review in connection with update of the 1980 GMP will demonstrate that oyster cultivation in Drakes Estero is an example of a beneficial preexisting activity that should be permitted to continue as a preexisting nonconforming use in a potential wilderness area, an area that is, in all other respects, managed as wilderness.”
For the full article, please click on the link below or copy and paste it into your web browser.
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02-03-09 DBOC
letter to Dr. Susan Roberts, Executive Director Ocean Studies Board, National Academy of Science,
reg: Apparent intentional misrepresentions of scientific factual information regarding harbor seal protocols.
For the full text of the letter, click on the link below:
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01-18-09
Dr. Corey Goodman letter to Dr. Susan Roberts, director, Dr. Pete Peterson, Chair, and members, Ocean Studies Board panel
“…to investigate NPS science concerning Drakes Estero, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences regarding New Information Shows that the National Park Service Committed Scientific Misconduct in the Documents it Presented.”
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12-18-07
Dr. Goodman letter to Dr. Susan Roberts, Ocean Studies Board, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences
“re THE CASE FOR SCIENTIFIC MISCONDUCT INCLUDING INTENTIONAL FABRICATION AND FALSIFICATION BY NATIONAL PARK SERVICE SUPERINTENDENT DON NEUBACHER AND STAFF SCIENTIST SARAH ALLEN, THE ATTEMPT TO COVER UP AND THE FAILURE TO INVESTIGATE, VIOLATIONS OF WHITE HOUSE OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY (OSTP): FEDERAL POLICY ON RESEARCH MISCONDUCT”
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