photo credit: Wikimedia
The Marin Independent Journal
op-ed sounds so reasonable on the surface, asking scientific questions about Point Reyes' oysters. It's authored by Sim Van der Ryn, a longtime Marin architect, a former state architect who has served as a professor of architecture at the University of California at Berkeley. And it suggests, so reasonably, that local Member of Congress Jared Huffman of work with Member of Congress Doc Hastings in investigating whether oysters should be removed from Drakes Bay. Rep. Huffman should, the piece urges, "demonstrate the courage of his convictions as an environmentalist and seize the opportunity to turn the House Committee on Natural Resources investigation into a bipartisan effort to ensure that the best science available is used in making decisions that affect the future of Drakes Estero and other shellfish producing areas around the country." What could possibly be wrong with that?
It's a trap.
The Big Oil interests now backing Kevin Lunny's Drakes Bay Oyster Farm have made science their talking point because they think they've spotted the National Park Service using bad science, even though then-Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar's decision terminating the oyster farm lease was based on law and policy, not science.
Although Lunny's supporters blame the NPS for a bad act, there's plenty of mud to be thrown on both sides. Lunny has apparently filed deceitful reports with the state of California for many years, lowballing the cost of cleanup by a factor of 50. His rock quarry business is alleged to have violated the Clean Water Act in 2013, in 2010, and in 2008. In February 2013, the Coastal Commission issued its second cease-and-desist order to the farm. "I find that this is one of the most egregious, egregious violations that I have seen," Commissioner Esther Sanchez said in a hearing.
And Lunny is now being backed by the biggest and oiliest of Big Oil folk: David Vitter inserted a save-the-Lunny-oyster-farm into S. 17, a bill to expedite construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.
The basic facts are simple: in 1962 President Kennedy created the Point Reyes National Seashore "to save and preserve, for purposes of public recreation, benefit, and inspiration, a portion of the diminishing seashore of the United States that remains undeveloped." Ten years later, the Park Service (courtesy of taxpayers) purchased the existing oyster company’s property, and gave the company a 40 lease as part of the deal. Congress, deciding in 1976 that the Seashore contained significant natural resources worthy of wilderness protection, then designated roughly 33,000 acres of wilderness, including Drakes Estero. Even though Drakes Estero was publicly owned and Congress passed wilderness legislation, the protections would have to wait until the Company’s 40 year term expired. Lunny bought the lease in 2004 betting that he could extend the lease past 2012. In November 2012, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar decided, as a matter of law and policy but not science, that Lunny had to leave.
Lunny's supporters - and there are many - claim that he is a hardworking job creator whose oysters help filter pollution and stormwater. A Los Angeles Times story paints a different picture of generous federal benefits: cattle leases and home/outbuilding leases at fractions of market value, plus free roof repairs that normally cost $50,000.
The science is not simple, with accusations and counter-accusations on both sides. Suffice to say that Doc Hastings and national Republicans are not normally friends to science. Rather, the oyster farm controversy is now one of political science:
So why would Rep. Doc Hastings, a Washington Republican who is chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, demand a document dump from Salazar, saying “serious questions have been raised about the science used by the National Park Service to justify the closure,” while also acknowledging that he knows Salazar's decision “was not based on scientific data”?
Well, because that's the way politics works these days. And believe me, the closure of Drakes Bay Oyster Co. is no longer about oysters, or the terms of the lease, or jobs, or science. It's about politics.
Whether Lunny intended to set a precedent or not, he's now being used by David Vitter and others who seek to expand commercial activities in wilderness. Science has nothing to do with national Republicans. Congressman Jared Huffman would be wise not to dine with those serving oil-drenched politics on the half shell.