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Point Reyes National Seashore Management Plan: "A Model Where Wilderness And Ranching Coexist"

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National Park Service officials Monday released a plan to allow ranching operations at Point Reyes National Seashore to be extended by 20 years/NPS file

Promising a "model where wilderness and ranching can coexist side-by-side," the National Park Service on Monday released the record of decision authorizing land-management changes for areas of Point Reyes National Seashore in California where livestock grazing is permitted within the park.

The long-awaited decision comes in the wake of charges that a rancher last month illegally bulldozed hundreds feet of park lands so as to maintain access to a creek that drains into Drakes Estero.

"NPS staff determined that disturbance along the riparian corridor included two sections: approximately 165 feet of riparian and upland vegetation terminating where the dozer became stuck and a northern stretch of approximately 360 feet near the access gate where the Home Ranch service road crosses the unnamed creek," Point Reyes Superintendent Craig Kenkel wrote to the rancher, Gino Lucchesi, adding that the work was unauthorized. "Just downstream of the service road crossing, staff observed freshly disturbed sediment was pushed into the creek, and approximately 515 feet of uplands adjacent and parallel to the existing access road were lightly graded. In addition, you performed cutting of willow and other riparian vegetation through some sections of the disturbance area."

Kenkel ordered the rancher to remove, by hand, sediment pushed into the creek and to install biodegradable erosion matting along the creekbed to prevent further erosion.

That incident prompted a conservation organization to question why the Park Service was continuing to allow ranching within the seashore.

“If the leaseholders can’t follow the rules that are currently in place and the Park Service cannot enforce those rules, whether it’s for lack of oversight capacity or lack of funding to enforce the current rules, why make these agreements even more complex?” Chance Cutrano, programs director of the Resource Renewal Institute, told the Mercury News. “Why make it even more difficult for park agencies to manage increasingly complex plans?”

The plan approved Monday is viewed by the Park Service as "a blueprint to guide the NPS’s management of lands, resources, development, and visitor use in the 28,000-acre planning area."

“Point Reyes National Seashore protects diverse natural and cultural resources that can serve as a model where wilderness and ranching can coexist side by side," Shannon Estenoz, the Interior Department's assistant secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, said in a statement endorsing the plan. “We recognize and deeply respect the passion that so many people have about how to best care for this special place and look forward to ongoing stakeholder engagement in the years to come.”

Kenkel added that the plan "strikes the right balance of recognizing the importance of ranching while also modernizing management approaches to protect park resources and the environment."

Whether outside groups agree remains to be seen. Some have claimed the 24 cattle and dairy operations pollute and adversely impact the environment (water quality, methane emissions, erosion, fish habitat), the infrastructure (pavement degradation from milk trucks), and recreational opportunities at the seashore.

Ranching has existed on the coastal California peninsula for 150 years. The industry's role in the establishment of the seashore has been and remains controversial. While the seashore's administrative history notes ranchers' opposition to the seashore, the Park Service on the seashore's website explains that ranchers came around to supporting the seashore due to development pressures creeping into the area.

While then-Interior Secretary Ken Salazar of the Obama administration in November 2012 refused to renew the lease of the Drakes Bay Oyster Co. so the estero could be managed as official wilderness, he also directed the Park Service to work on extending ranching leases “from 10 to 20 years to provide greater certainty and clarity for the ranches operating within the national park’s Pastoral Zone and to support the continued presence of sustainable ranching and dairy operations."

In February 2016, litigation was brought against the Park Service related to the ongoing ranch planning process and the use of lands in the planning area for ranching and dairying. The plaintiffs and the Park Service, together with the ranchers and the County of Marin, entered into settlement negotiations. The court approved a multi-party Settlement Agreement on July 14, 2017.

Per that agreement, the Park Service agreed that in lieu of a Ranch Comprehensive Management Plan, it would prepare a General Management Plan Amendment and Environmental Impact Statement addressing the management of the lands currently leased for ranching in Point Reyes and the north district of Golden Gate.

That amendment and EIS were released Monday. Under it, ranching leases for five families can be extended 20 years.

Under the framework, the Park Service is expected to:

  • Incorporate management actions and grazing regimes that promote habitat heterogeneity, connectivity, and species that are considered ecosystem engineers into individual ROAs as appropriate.
  • Identify and require implementation of actions to modernize Manure and Nutrient Management systems on dairies consistent with USEPA, state, and San Francisco Bay RWQCB requirements. Incorporate and prioritize water quality improvement management actions in individual ROAs with anticipated timing to ensure resource protection outcomes are realized.
  • Regulate all beef ranches under a framework consistent with Tomales Bay watershed to ensure all operations adhere to a parkwide standard.
  • Evaluate lighting on all ranch buildings and noise from farm machinery and equipment to determine best practices and incorporate relevant mitigation measures from into individual (Ranching Operating Agreements).

"Input gained throughout this planning process was critical to shaping the National Park Service’s final plan,” said Kenkel. “We look forward to bringing together the diverse perspectives that have helped shape this plan and working collaboratively to manage these complex lands for this and future generations.”

The Park Service said that within "an expanded Scenic Landscape Zone, tule elk in the Drakes Beach area will be managed at a population threshold of 140 elk consistent with desired conditions for the planning area. The Limantour herd will be allowed to expand in population and geographic distribution, but female groups will be discouraged from occupying ranching areas."

The plan also allows for culling of elk if population numbers get out of hand.

Additionally, the agency said it will "implement a zoning framework to protect park resources by directing ranching activities to appropriate areas while allowing for some operational flexibility. Diversification opportunities that could be implemented will be limited to a maximum of 50 sheep or 66 goats with an equivalent reduction of cattle animal units, farm stays limited to two guest rooms per ranch pending water availability, and ranch tours. The selected action also identifies opportunities to improve the visitor experience and a framework for managing visitor capacity in the planning area."

Comments

The NPS is buchering Pt. Reyes in favor of the ranchers who largely should not be there anyway.  Horrible news and I think I will lead hikes elsewhere.  This is a national seashore BTW.  


There is no balance in this plan. The ranchers got basically everything they asked for, including increased commercialization (allowing for new types of animals to be raised, overnight stays, row crop agriculture).

 

And there are more than just "claims" that "the 24 cattle and dairy operations pollute and adversely impact the environment (water quality, methane emissions, erosion, fish habitat), the infrastructure (pavement degradation from milk trucks), and recreational opportunities at the seashore." The Marin Independent Journal reported the results of water tests done by a lab from Berkeley that found:

E. coli bacteria levels up to 40 times the state health standard at Kehoe Lagoon
total fecal coliform bacteria up to five times the state health standard at South Kehoe Creek
Enterococci bacteria up to 300 times the state health standard at Kehoe Lagoon
High concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus that might lead to toxic phytoplankton and algal blooms

 

https://www.marinij.com/2021/03/20/point-reyes-seashore-water-tests-find...

 

The Park Service has never done regular water quality testing. That demonstrates extremely poor management.

And it's not just a bulldozing along a creek that is problematic. A picture recently showed up on Facebook of a huge ditch dug into a hillside that has been used for who-knows-how-many years as a dump for old equipment and all sorts of other debris. The Park Service knew nothing about it. That also demonstrates extremely poor management.

 

The ranchers, depsite overwhelming public and organization opposition to their proposal seem to have won for now. Let's hope it's only temporary.


The NPS at PRNS should from this point on keep in mind that environmentally aware public are going to be watching their management or lack of, very carefully. 


I think the NPS is doing what it can in a pragmatic way.  It is easy to torch things and be a zealot but when you have to manage things it becomes a bit more complex.  I think the plan does strike a balance and I appreciate the NPS considering all sides - something that used to be admired in the public sector.  


The Park Service plan does NOT strike a balance. The plan pretty much follows the comments outlined in a letter submitted by the Point Reyes Seashore Ranchers Association. You can read it for yourself at http://savedrakesbay.com/core/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/PRSRA-Scoping-L...

It did not balance the views of the overwhelming majority of people who commented, that Nature should FINALLY, after 60 years, take precedence over ranching in a national seashore that was set up "in order to preserve, for purposes of public recreation, benefit, and inspiration, a portion of the diminishing seashore of the United States that remains undeveloped, ..."

Note that preserving ranching is not listed as one of the purposes in the law.


"Ranching has existed on the coastal California peninsula for 150 years."  This is the problem.  Ranching has *polluted* the peninsula for 150 years.  The Park's EIS catalogs the damage to the air, water, soil, vegetation, and wildlife. We are in an extinction and climate crisis, and this is a national park.  What a horrible, backwards, myopic and corrupt plan this is.

 


I have been to Point Reyes dozens of time, and am a life long resident of the Bay Area. The Park Service has essentially given away our National Seashore to private commercial ranches, who pollute and destroy the public lands that are meant for everyone. The "balance between Ranching and wildlife" that Rep. Huffman and others claim is happening at the Seashore is a fallacy. 


"Under the framework, the Park Service is expected to:..."  Here is another problem.  The park Service is *expected* to do a lot of other things as well, like sample water quality, enforce the law, protect wildlife, etc., and they *DO NOT DO THESE THINGS* in Point Reyes, because the ranching families arrange for their politician friends, whom they have bought, like Jared Huffman, arrange that they are left alone to do whatever they like, like bulldoze into creeks, create dumps, etc.


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