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Drakes Bay Oyster Co. Seeks TRO To Keep Point Reyes National Seashore Oyster Farm In Business

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Politics stalked the national park system throughout 2007. From snowmobiles in Yellowstone to off-road vehicles in Big Cypress, it seemed natural resources and careful stewardship were trumped too often.

We heard both National Park Service Director Mary Bomar and Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne promise that science and careful stewardship would rule the national parks, and yet it seemed those promises fell short.

Not all the news surrounding the parks was negative, though. Congress approved President Bush's hefty funding increase for the parks, the National Park Foundation held a summit to explore partnership and philanthropy in the parks, and the Centennial Challenge was launched.

That said, here's a look at some of the top stories that rippled across the national park system in 2007:

  • Yellowstone snowmobiles. Despite scientific reports that detailed how snow coaches were the best alternative for Yellowstone's environment, wildlife, employees and visitors, park Superintendent Suzanne Lewis approved a plan to allow as many as 540 snowmobiles per day into Yellowstone. That decision, which conservation groups have promised to test in court, could have consequences far beyond Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks as I noted back in November.

    Rick Smith, of the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees, speaks of decision (1:00)
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  • Fran Mainella points finger at Interior Department. A year after leaving her job as director of the National Park Service, Fran Mainella told the Traveler that Interior Department officials, not her office, called the shots on allowing snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park.

    Fran Mainella talks to the 'Traveler' (4:34)
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  • Jet skis. Conservation groups asked the Park Service to reinstate bans against personal watercraft in Gulf Islands and Cape Lookout national seashores as well as Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. If the agency balks, the groups say they'll take it to court over the matter.

  • ORVs in Big Cypress National Preserve. A decision by Big Cypress Superintendent Karen Gustin to reopen 20 miles of off-road vehicle routes was greeted by a lawsuit just before Christmas when a coalition of groups filed a lawsuit to overturn that decision.

  • Katmai Bear Hunt. A groundswell of public outrage greeted the annual hunt of brown bears in Katmai National Preserve. Though hunting technically is allowed in the preserve, the seeming habituation of bears to humans created the impression that the bear hunt was akin to "shooting fish in a barrel" and prompted calls for the Park Service to end the hunt. Watch Video

  • Park Service budget. President Bush proposed, and Congress approved, a hefty funding increase for the National Park Service. True, the $2.39 billion FY08 budget cannibalizes some sections of the agency's budget so its base operations funding will rise $153.4 million. But an increase is an increase.

  • Centennial Challenge. In his fiscal 2008 budget request, President Bush proposed a Centennial Challenge with visions of infusing $3 billion, in a mix of public and private funding, into the park system as the National Park Service moves towards its centennial in 2016. Though controversial on several fronts, and falling short of his 2000 campaign promise to spend $5 billion to wipe out the Park Service's maintenance backlog, the initiative gained congressional approval, though not exactly as the president requested it.

    Kempthorne Announces Centennial Projects; Podcast (10:50)
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  • National Park Foundation Leadership Summit on Partnership and Philanthropy. Private philanthropy long has played a crucial role in the construction and health of the national park system. To explore how philanthropy and partnerships can bolster the parks as they head to the National Park Service's centennial in 2016, the National Park Foundation in October convened a summit in Austin, Texas, to examine the possibilities.

    NPS Director Mary Bomar addresses Leadership Summit (1:45)
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  • The Demise of the National Parks Pass. This much-loved $50 pass, which got its holder into as many parks as they wanted for a year, died on January 1 when the $80 America the Beautiful Pass came to be. However, congressional efforts towards the end of 2007 could spur the return of the National Parks Pass.

  • Climate Change. In a telling report, the Government Accountability Office said the Interior Department has failed to provide the National Park Service with the tools it needs to cope with climate change and its impacts on the national park system.

Comments

I started thinking about it for a sec, and the buildings and dock actually aren't in the wilderness area. I already knew that, but it bears noting. The NPS could have theoretically said that to Lunny that they would like the buildings to remain as a museum, and it wouldn't really change anything regarding the wilderness designation. Ending the federal reservation of the oyster farm is just a means to indirectly void the state water lease.

I still think that until the state tells him to leave, he's under no obligation to remove the oyster racks. I thought he was paid up for the current term. Of course it becomes far more difficult (including the practicality of removing the oyster racks) once the shore operations are gone.


Zebulon: I found that to be sadly true at an early age on another California coastal bay. As a kid growing up the bay was my playground and schoolground. During the season I would connect with the weather, the tides and the rest of the Wild"s spectrum of courses in childhood education while collecting a few Pacific Brant to feast on at family dinners.

A disturbing part of the education was that people from urban areas were moving to my playground and were not appreciating the connection I had while building their ideas of connection very near spots where the Brant Geese and ducks would come to get grit and freshwater, eliminating the opportunity. All the while the Oystermen would work the beds for a few hours on the changing tides a few days a week. It is and always has been my strongest connection to "Real" to work and enjoy the wilds. Pitying those that can't seem to allow themselves or others that connection. There have been many that, with gentle urging (and sometimes not so gently but with respect) have come to appreciate something other than their own first impulses of PC and driving political environmental group's arguments seeking ever more "issues" at which to fundraise. The goal seeming to be further overreach toward the "museum" model resulting in significant collateral damage to cultural connections. This seems to be an ongoing theme that doesn't have to be, I believe.

My appeal is to leave the Oystermen alone and enjoy. The word "diversity" comes to mind in the real sense.


Zebulon may have identified an element of this debate that applies not only to this issue, but to the broader question of wilderness and other official designations for natural areas:

" I find more wilderness in seeing human living in harmony with nature than in the modern day museum pretend wilderness that the NPS is selling us."

Are the already sometimes subtle differences between "wilderness," "wildness" and "natural areas" becoming increasingly blurred in the minds of more and more people in today's society? The answer has important implications in lots of areas: legally, politically and practically for public land management.


I'm thinking of what might have happened from a practical view if the California Fish and Game commission hadn't attached a valid federal reservation as a condition for the validity of the water bottom lease. Certainly NPS thought that once they ended the federal reservation, the waters of Drakes Estero would become full wilderness. Of course they were also pushing for Johnson's state lease to end before 2012.

And frankly having a shore operation right there was the only thing that made any economic sense. That included fuel for the boats and keeping the boats where they would be less likely to pick up hitchhikers. I remember reading the oyster farm's response to the DEIS noted that they minimized invasive species introduction because they had the only motor boats, and that a more likely source for invasives would be the recreational kayakers and clam diggers who didn't properly clean their equipment.


Sadly enough, there are plenty of people who buy into that specious argument. I find more wilderness in seeing human living in harmony with nature than in the modern day museum pretend wilderness that the NPS is selling us. I suspect that the pull of the wilderness argument is stronger with all the city folks that have never lived on a farm and idealize nature.

I agree 100%. What a weird society we live in when it comes to these issues.

I think these trivial victories for the Wilderness purists are pyrrhic and I predict they're going to result in one big ultimate defeat someday. Their purists' numbers are already dwindling and eventually there won't be enough octogenarian white people left to sustain the political base the Wilderness Act needs to continue in its current form. The Act will totter along on autopilot until some event precipitates a crisis—perhaps, for example, China will cut off our supply of rare earths and someone will have noticed there's a big neodymium or dysprosium deposit in some Wilderness somewhere. The extractive industries will move in after getting the Act reformed over minimal political resistance, since the purists will have succeeded in creating a society in which few know what a Wilderness is and fewer still will ever have visited one.


So, imtnbke and Zeb, should we open up the shores of Yellowstone Lake to resorts? Think how wonderful it would be to have a nice lodge to retreat to on the Promontory after a day spent water skiing (with a wet suit, of course).

Should the Sawtooth Wilderness in Idaho be cut through with roads so we can better access the backcountry lakes? Maybe do the same with the Russian Wilderness in California, only for four-wheeler access? They deserve recreation in the great outdoors, too, no?

I fear your approach to how wilderness should be managed would be detrimental to the nation as a whole and individuals personally. We need these places not only for muscle-powered recreation and the solitude they offer, but also for the rejuvenation and personal reflection that can be achieved beyond the reach of today's "civilized" world.

And don't forget what they provide in terms of vital wildlife habitat, air-cleansing forests, and natural ground-water filtration systems.

The "harmony" you describe can already be found in many parts of the country in the form of national and state forests, Bureau of Land Management areas, Bureau of Reclamation recreation areas, Fish and Wildlife refuges, even within National Park Service Heritage areas "where natural, cultural, and historic resources combine to form a cohesive, nationally important landscape."

There's no need to stake similar claims in every inch of the wild country. As has been pointed out many times before on the Traveler, officially designated wilderness represents just a fraction of the public landscape -- 109,501,440 acres, or roughly 5 percent of the entire nation's landmass. And roughly half of that wilderness is in Alaska, far out of reach for most Americans.

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings, Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. As age comes, one source of enjoyment after another is closed, but nature's sources never fail. -- John Muir


For the nth time, that 5% is not relevant. The percentage of open spaces currently designed as wilderness is closer to 20% or 30%, not exactly an immaterial percentage.

I don't also don't buy the slippery slope that allowing an oyster farm in the estrero will lead to doom all around the country wilderness. Anyhow, it does not matter. The NPS is going to get its wilderness (at least their imaginary construct representation of it) and 30 poor souls will lose their jobs.


Kurt Repanshek:

So, imtnbke and Zeb, should we open up the shores of Yellowstone Lake to resorts? Think how wonderful it would be to have a nice lodge to retreat to on the Promontory after a day spent water skiing (with a wet suit, of course).

Should the Sawtooth Wilderness in Idaho be cut through with roads so we can better access the backcountry lakes? Maybe do the same with the Russian Wilderness in California, only for four-wheeler access? They deserve recreation in the great outdoors, too, no?

That's a far different argument than what anyone is making. As it stands now, existing mining claims are still valid even if an area becomes designated as wilderness. Death Valley NP still has 29 valid mining claims that could be exercised.

And frankly, Grant Village was built near Yellowstone Lake in my lifetime. Of course that's not designated wilderness.

The key to the oyster farm was that it was an existing business. I remember seeing a report on the proceedings that led to the potential wilderness status, and a great many organizations and people supported the continuation of the oyster farm as something compatible with the natural surroundings. You're not going to many similar preexisting uses.


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