Commercial oyster farming began in Drakes Estero in
the last quarter of the nineteenth century, but by some accounts the
history of shellfish cultivation on Point Reyes began long before that.
Ancient mounds of shells discovered on surrounding beaches have led
archaeologists to speculate that for thousands of years the Miwok Indians
harvested oysters from tremendous clusters that stretched throughout
the estuary.
Over the millennia Drakes Estero, now part of the
Point Reyes National Seashore, hasn’t changed much. Its shallow
water – some six feet deep throughout – is still cold and
clear, and, seen from the shore on a sunny day, astonishingly blue.
Humans are still pulling oysters out of the estuary’s narrow, finger-shaped
bays.
In coming years that could change. Kevin Lunny owns
Drake’s Bay Oyster Company, formerly known as Johnson’s Oyster
Company, the cannery that has operated on Drakes Estero since the 1940s.
He says that he was told by National Seashore Superintendent Don Neubacher
more than a year ago – before he bought the cannery – that
the park plans to end oyster farming in the estuary. In a telephone
interview this week, park administrators confirmed that when the company’s
current lease expires, six years from now, it will not be renewed.
But few outside of the agricultural and environmental
communities are aware that Drake’s Bay Oyster is to be shut down.
The expected closure will mark the end both of a living piece of West
Marin’s history and of one of the state’s most significant
shellfish producers.
According to Lunny, thousands of visitors flock to
the cannery, located on the shore of Schooner Bay, every week. Drake’s
Bay Oyster Company holds more than half of the area leased out for shellfish
farming by the state Department of Fish and Game, and by itself accounts
for 85 percent of Marin County’s aquaculture.
Sustainable ag model
"I’d hate to see it go," said Tom Moore,
a marine biologist for Fish and Game. "It’s got the best water
quality of any of the leases in the state. It’s a green business.
It’s been in operation a long time. As far as Marin goes, it could
be a lot to the economy." In 2004, Moore said, Fish and Game renewed
the company’s leases on harvest areas for another 25 years, the
maximum term. But Drake’s Bay Oyster can’t stay open without
continued use of the small plot of shore it leases from the National
Park Service.
Lunny, who grew up on the neighboring historic "G"
ranch, is known in West Marin as a luminary of the organic farming movement.
His beef ranch, which he also leases from the National Seashore, was
the first in the county to have its pastures certified organic, and
to date still has the county’s only certified organic cattle. A
soft-spoken, broad-shouldered man with salt-and-pepper hair and an easy
smile, Lunny this week explained the place of shellfish in sustainable
agriculture as he looked out over the shore of Schooner Bay, where visitors
to the farm were spread out, shucking and eating raw oysters.
"What this oyster farm represents is our best
example of a sustainable food system," he said. "It’s
the poster child. We can produce 10 times the amount of protein per
acre in water that we can on land. We don’t use fertilizers, we
don’t till our land, we don’t have to feed these animals.
Sustainably as we can grow beef, we still have to use fossil fuels to
prepare feeds for winter, to do the feeding and moving of the animals,
and for processing. I think the biggest environmental tragedy that could
happen here is to lose this production."
‘A fantastic job of cleaning up’
Lunny bought the farm last year from owner Tom Johnson,
whose father founded Johnson’s Oyster Company in 1957. Before that,
the operation was run by the Coast Oyster Company, based in Washington
State. Johnson’s thrived for decades, and at one point was the
largest oyster producer in California, turning out more than 700,000
pounds of shucked oyster meat a year. The land on Schooner Bay occupied
by the farm’s processing center and retail outlet was sold to the
park in 1965, then leased back to the Johnsons for a 40-year term.
In later years, production fell off, as the Johnsons
poured money into improvements intended to reduce the farm’s impact
on the estuary. County, state, and federal agencies demanded that problems
with the company’s septic system and overcrowded worker housing
be fixed.
As a child, Lunny says, he would often watch the Johnsons’
oystermen at work from the pastures of his family’s neighboring
ranch, and was eager to buy the cannery when it came up for sale. Although
he was told up front by Park Supt. Neubacher that the lease would not
be renewed in 2012, he has so far poured $300,000 into various environmental
cleanups.
"Kevin has done a fantastic job of cleaning up,"
National Seashore spokesman John Dell’Osso said. "Everything
that we’ve asked him to do, he’s done."
Feds claimed estuary for wilderness area
Neubacher said this week that in not renewing the
lease the park will be following the intent of Congress, which designated
Drakes Estero as a potential wilderness area in 1976. The park administration
essentially has no choice in keeping the farm open, he said, since congressional
legislation directs the park to remove commercial activities from potential
wilderness tracts – changing them to full wilderness – as
soon as possible.
"From our perspective, Congress told us what
to do, and we’re following that," Neubacher said. Attorneys
from the Department of the Interior have confirmed that the area should
go to full wilderness in 2012, he said. At this point, he added, only
an act of Congress would make it possible for Drake’s Bay Oyster
to remain open longer.
Marin County Agricultural Commissioner Stacy Carlsen,
who supports continued oyster farming in Drakes Estero, challenges the
assertion that the National Seashore has no choice in preserving the
historic operation.
"That’s too easy," he said, "to
fall back and say we have this guidance document and just to ignore
the historical significance of farming out on the point." He said
that he considers aquaculture an integral part of the county’s
agricultural makeup, particularly since it lends diversity to food production.
"To me this is not just a decision made in a vacuum. This deals
with people’s lives and the integrity of our farming community."
Oysters and the estuary
Some local environmental activists support the end
of oyster farming in Drakes Estero. Both the Sierra Club’s Marin
chapter and the Environmental Action Committee of West Marin sent letters
to the Park Service supporting the transformation of the area to wilderness
at the end of the current lease; the Sierra Club’s letter also
proposes various ways to limit oyster cultivation in the company’s
six remaining years.
Intent of Congress aside, the extent of oyster farming’s
impact on the estuary and its wildlife is questionable. In theory, shellfish
cultivation can have several harmful effects: imported oyster seed can
carry non-native diseases, and harvest-boats on the estuary can leak
gasoline into the water or disturb harbor seals from the sandbars where
they sun themselves.
But park officials and environmentalists agree that
Lunny has done much to reduce those threats. Drake’s Bay Oyster
cultivates its own seed, eliminating the risk of imported pathogens;
avoids harbor seal haulout sites, as identified by the Park Service;
and plans to install quieter, cleaner boat engines. At a recent meeting,
Lunny said, local environmental leaders agreed that he had successfully
minimized all impacts except one – the "visual impact"
of oyster racks protruding above the water’s surface.
Other environmentalists
Some in the environmental movement question whether
uprooting the oyster operation is necessary to preserve the estuary’s
health.
"You can have an estuary that’s got wilderness
protection on it and also have sustainable food production," said
Bolinas organic farmer Peter Martinelli, who sits on the Environmental
Action Committee’s board of directors. "I don’t think
one should come at the expense of the other."
Helge Hellberg, executive director of nonprofit Marin
Organic, said it’s shortsighted to give up a local source of food
production with minimal impact on the environment.
"To rip out an operation that has been in place
for 40 years that uses no inputs, no chemicals, no fertilizers, no feeds
– it is very, very questionable to me if that’s a good approach,"
Hellberg said. "To eliminate [Drake’s Bay Oyster] and ship
in oysters from Washington, from an environmental point of view, makes
no sense whatsoever."
Ranchers’ concerns
The fate of Drake’s Bay Oyster Company worries
some ranchers in the National Seashore. In the legislation that created
the park, special provisions were made for the dairy and beef ranches
that existed on Point Reyes, some of them dating back to the nineteenth
century. Those ranches could continue operating indefinitely, Congress
said, leasing their land back from the Park Service.
While no such exception was made specifically for
aquaculture, fear has taken root in the ranching community that the
closure of the oyster farm might signal a new view towards agriculture
in the park.
"If the park ends the lease of Drake’s Bay
Oyster Company, what is that saying to the rest of the leasees?"
Asked David Evans, a fourth-generation rancher on Point Reyes. "Are
the rest of the ranches next?"
Lunny said that those who want agriculture eliminated
from the National Seashore will see the oyster farm’s closure as
a milestone. "Everybody’s saying, okay, if this happens, who’s
next. Whether they’re rational concerns or not, those are the concerns,"
he said.
Park Supt. Neubacher said that the situation at Drake’s
Bay Oyster has no bearing on the leases of other ranchers, since aquaculture,
unlike ranching, is not protected under the laws that created the park.
"That’s a resounding no," he said.
"The legislation was pretty clear that we could do dairy and beef
ranching, and there’s no wilderness on ranchlands."
What the public wants
Lunny’s business plan for the oyster company
will allow his family to recoup their expenses within six years –
"we’ll get out with our skin, barely," he said –
but when speaking to him, one has the impression that the preservation
of Drakes Bay Oyster is about more than money.
"As I got to understand what this was, I just
really got excited," he said. "This was California’s
largest commercial production of shellfish for decades and decades,
and it still had wilderness quality." He paused for a moment, looking
out over the electric blue water of Schooner Bay. "That’s
what we want in our food production. That’s exactly what our goal
should be.
"The park administration has told us they’re
not going to renew our lease in 2012, because they need to actively
make this a full wilderness," he continued. "Well, if that’s
what the people of the United States want, that’s what they’re
going to get. But I’d like to make sure that people know what they’re
losing. They have to know the cost of making this a wilderness. When
the people know and the people decide, I think we’ll be fine with
that."
On an afternoon this week at Drakes Estero, few customers
appeared to be aware that the farm is slated for closure in just six
years. "No way," said San Bruno resident Sun Hwang, who was
crouched over a bag of fresh oysters, still in their shells, with his
wife and small daughter. Shaking his head in dismay, Hwang said this
is the only place he could get seafood as fresh as that in his native
Korea.
Mill Valley resident Joel Kimmel said that he comes
to Drake’s Bay Oyster every time he’s in West Marin. For his
daughter’s high school graduation party, he said, his family bought
hundreds of oysters harvested out of Drakes Estero.
"They should keep this open," he said. "Why
close it? Where’s our history? There’s too many of these things
disappearing." After handing his money across the counter in Drake’s
Bay’s small storefront, he hoisted his bag of oysters and walked
out to his car. "The story will be, ‘oh, that’s where
the oyster farm used to be,’" he said, "rather than,
‘let’s go in and get some.’"