NPS missed a critical NEPA deadline last week.
DBOC has not been informed why or what NPS now plans to do. NPS has not communicated with Kevin and Nancy Lunny regarding how they will now proceed.
DBOC’s attorney, Ryan Waterman, wrote Secretary Salazar on November 1, 2012:
“The National Park Service (NPS) has failed to meet a critical National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) public review deadline. As a result, the NPS cannot publish a Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) for the Drakes Bay Oyster Company Special Use Permit (DBOC SUP) that provides even the minimum period of public review prior to November 30, 2012.”
Secretary Salazar, in that letter, was also told that:
“By letter on September 17, 2012, we also documented legal inadequacies identified by the National Research Council of the National Academies of Sciences in the Draft EIS (DEIS) for the DBOC SUP, which make the DEIS so inadequate as to preclude meaningful analysis pursuant to NEPA regulations. These inadequacies also prohibit NPS from proceeding to finalize the DEIS into a FEIS, but instead, require revision and republication of the DEIS (an exercise that also cannot be completed prior to November 30, 2012).”
In April 2008, NPS and DBOC executed a special agreement – a Memorandum of Understanding – signed by then-NPS Regional Director, Jon Jarvis, that gave DBOC a “seat at the table” in any ensuing NEPA process. However, NPS unilaterally ignored that commitment throughout this process. Now, in light of the NPS to meet its own deadlines, DBOC is in the dark as to what is happening and the letter just sent provides Secretary Salazar with a proposal for approving our pending permit application.
For the full text of the The DBOC letter to the Secretary, from their attorney, Click the link below:
Drakes Bay Oyster Company & the National Park Service. Watch the video, "THE FRAMING OF AN OYSTER FARM" at http://vimeo.com/52331881 