|
|
| The Pulitzer Prize-Winning Weekly Newspaper |
| THE
EDITOR |
Editorial
Archives » |
Untitled Document
| More than an apology |
The Editor: Tess Elliott
2009-05-21 |
|
For years the National Park Service told us that Kevin Lunny’s oyster farm was harming Drakes Estero. It was clogging the water, damaging eelgrass and driving out harbor seals. Beyond these, there were legal reasons the business had to go. Once it shut down, the estero would become the only federally protected wilderness estuary south of Alaska.
Then Lunny spoke up. The park’s claims were news to him—startling news, because he was pouring money into cleaning up the estero. He purchased the business knowing that the renewable clause in his permit enabled the park to extend it. The superintendent made it clear he had no intention of doing so, but he did so in the context of the mess left by Johnson’s. Lunny planned to demonstrate that his oyster farm could contribute to the ecology and the economy of Point Reyes.
People took sides. Environmentalists braced against ranchers and argued among themselves. Park employees polarized, reputations suffered blows. Childhood friends blamed each other for the acrimony, and the press was accused of biased reporting. Everyone felt manipulated and confused.
Then a panel of world-class scientists reported that there was no evidence that the oyster farm had any significant negative impact. Worse yet, the panel found that the park exaggerated and misrepresented information in its campaign to prove that it did.
Jon Jarvis, regional director of the Point Reyes National Seashore, apologized. But his apology was redolent of the half-truths that led to it. On the day the National Academy of Sciences released its report on the estero, Jarvis made a series of evasive and equivocating claims. Moreover, he demonstrated that he had no plan to reverse the widespread effects of the park’s faulty science.
By failing to acknowledge the gravity of the report, Jarvis showed a lack of respect for science, the scientific process and our community. The public deserves an explanation. Understanding why the park did what it did, and allowed the situation to come to such a painful—and expensive—point, is critical to restoring our trust. So far, Jarvis has only offered a weak apology.
“The Academy agreed with us in some areas, disagreed with us in other areas,” he said on the phone from Washington on May 5. In interviews with other newspapers, he repeated himself but reversed the roles. We agree with some of the Academy’s findings and disagree with others, he told the San Jose Mercury News.
It’s clear what the Academy agrees with (the park’s description of the estero’s ecology) and what it disagrees with (each of the park’s claims of environmental harm). It is not clear what Jarvis agrees and disagrees with. He conceded that his “data sets were flawed” and that his “conclusions were debated.” The only point he contested was the presence of native oysters in the estero prior to the oyster farm’s existence.
“Based on our understanding, there is no evidence of the presence of native oysters. We’ve asked the Academy to further evaluate the supposition of native oysters,” he said.
Jarvis also referred to a “corrected” version of the park’s report, Drakes Estero—A Sheltered Wilderness Estuary. This report, in its four iterations, was a focus of the Academy’s review. “We appreciate…that the academy concurred with many of our conclusions in the final, corrected version of the report,” he said. But there is no such version.
After complaints from the public, the original report was removed from the park’s website and several other drafts were issued—each failing to correct the errors. The last one disappeared. An “acknowledgement of corrections to previous versions” was posted in its place.
However, the Academy stated that even this “does not fully reflect the conclusions of the [Academy] in two areas.” The document ignored the probable presence of native oysters in the estero, and failed to correct conclusions drawn from seal data, which the Academy stated were “incomplete and non-representative of the full spectrum of activities that could potentially disturb seals in the area.”
Last year, the Inspector General found that the original Sheltered Wilderness report was distributed to the Sierra Club, National Parks and Conservation Association, Environmental Action Committee and others. From there, its erroneous message rippled out—to the Board of Supervisors, Lynn Woolsey, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, California Coastal Commission, Marine Mammal Commission, California State Resources Agency, Marine Life Protection Act Task Force, California Department of Fish and Game and NOAA. These people and agencies are now being misled; at best, they are confused. Jarvis must assure us he will set the record straight.
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
