California coastal commissioners tore into a water quality strategy presented by the Point Reyes National Seashore last week, moving unanimously to reject the document in a rebuke that aligned the state agency with the concerns of anti-ranching advocates.
The commissioners had no analysis of the document from their staff before last Thursday’s meeting in Ventura County because of the park’s last-minute submission, so they responded based on the expertise of a few commissioners, and on what commission chair Donne Brownsey called “common sense.” The park must now create a more extensive new strategy from scratch by September with help from regional water quality regulators and commission staff.
Coastal commissioners first asked the park to create water quality and climate action strategies a year ago when they approved the seashore’s embattled general management plan amendment. Last Thursday, Commissioner Mark Gold, a water quality expert who created the Beach Report Card while he was president of the nonprofit Heal the Bay, offered the most concrete and pointed critique of the resulting strategy, which he called “not adequate.”
The plan failed to use years of prior monitoring to identify specific problem areas, Commissioner Gold said. And although the strategy includes plans to test for fecal indicator bacteria, he cited a “laundry list” of other evidence of pollution that the park failed to consider. For example, the park should look at eutrophication—excessive levels of nutrients like nitrogen that can cause harmful algal blooms—and should consult with the regional water quality board before returning.
“This is not hard stuff,” Commissioner Gold said. “When I was running Heal the Bay, we had a volunteer monitoring program…that was literally 20 to 50 times more rigorous than this.”
Other commissioners returned to fundamental concerns about ongoing dairying and beef ranching, and their frustration with the park’s planning was clear.
“I think there’s unanimity here that this is unacceptable from a procedural and a substantive standpoint,” Commissioner Steve Padilla said. “The elephant in the room, or the cattle in the room, is that it’s not sustainable to see [ranching] continue in this location because of the adverse impacts on the coast, and I think we all know that.”
Yet the commissioners understood that if they didn’t attach careful requirements to their denial, the park service, a federal agency, could wash its hands of state coastal regulations and buck their authority. The commission had to walk a fine line by delivering a strong rebuke while remaining involved in the planning process.
Park superintendent Craig Kenkel also voiced a desire to stay involved with the agency, but activists seeking an end to ranching in the seashore have viewed the coastal commission as an ally, and a stream of public comments mostly favored a total abandonment of the G.M.P.A. and a reversal of park policy.
“Overall, the seashore’s perspective is based on a strategy that focuses on negotiations with commercial operators based on their willingness to make financial investments to protect coastal resources,” said Morgan Patton, the executive director of the Environmental Action Committee of West Marin. “This needs to be flipped.”
Theresa Harlan, a Coast Miwok descendant whose family lived on Tomales Bay for generations before dairy farmers evicted them, also expressed deep disappointment in the park’s plan for agriculture. “What we have seen are years of ranchers treating public lands as if they still belonged to them,” Ms. Harlan said. “Must we continue to depend on the good faith of leaseholders?”
The park’s water quality strategy and accompanying climate action strategy were in the works for several months, Superintendent Kenkel said, though he stressed they were “first-year versions” that could grow more detailed and specific over time. The climate action plan largely consisted of programs the park already announced with its record of decision last fall: a long-term reduction of dairies and cutting agricultural diversification. But the water quality plan contains two new practices: a coastal testing pilot program that revives monitoring the park did until 2013, and a plan for targeted assessment testing at specific ranches. If the park finds water quality problems at a given ranch, it can add requirements like new fencing to the rancher’s operating agreement.
This idea didn’t fly with activists, who felt the requirements should be more preemptive and target the root of water quality problems. Many accused the park of inaction, raising concerns that park visitors, not staff, had sounded the alarm about recent issues like the failed septic systems at B and L Ranches. “I actually do appreciate the citizens who are alerting us to environmental conditions in the park,” Superintendent Kenkel responded. “It shows me that there’s a need for the National Park Service to really comprehensively understand the environmental condition of the seashore.”
But he said the park has seen increased visitation as it has been embroiled in the ranching controversy. “If conditions are so tragic at the seashore, why are the visitors still coming?” he asked.
The commission’s frustration had been building since the park requested a delayed deadline for its strategy last month. It reached a boiling point as the commissioners prepared to reject the document. “I think it’s an embarrassment where we are today,” Commissioner Sara Aminzadeh said, calling the document an “abject failure” to meet the commission’s conditions.
After Commissioner Gold described the testing plan’s shortcomings, Commissioner Mike Wilson, an environmental engineer and consultant, wondered why the park hadn’t solicited proposals from private firms to plan and conduct more extensive monitoring.
“There would be all kinds of folks chomping at the bit to do this and it seems like they just kind of left it to some staff who are doing a whole bunch of other stuff,” he said. “I want them to engage with professionals to move forward with the professional document that we expect.”
After three hours of comments and questions, the agency’s lawyer advised the commissioners that they could neither rescind last year’s conditional concurrence nor enforce a condition on a federal agency as readily as they could on a private individual. If they reopened the determination and the park refused to cooperate, their only recourse would be to attempt mediation or sue.
Instead, the commission’s executive director Jack Ainsworth suggested a “pragmatic” solution: the commissioners should reject the plan, leave the concurrence in place, and ask the park to work with their own staff and water quality experts to create a new plan by September.
Some activists hailed the unanimous rejection. But most, including those suing the park over the G.M.P.A., were quick to point out its inadequacy. “What will likely happen is N.P.S. will return with a ‘stronger’ water quality plan to ‘better mitigate’ cattle manure inputs to water bodies,” said Laura Cunningham, the California director of the Western Watersheds Project. “Kicking the can down the road. We will push back.”