A group of West Marin residents has asked the county to intervene in the lawsuit filed by three environmental groups that oppose continued ranching and dairying in the Point Reyes National Seashore.

Mediation talks are underway between the ranchers, park officials and representatives of the environmental organizations that filed the litigation two years ago. Members of the citizen group believe the county should also have a seat at the table.

“The county is the key missing player in the mediation talks,” said Burr Heneman, a Point Reyes Station resident. “The county has a huge interest in the future of agriculture in Marin and the seashore.”

When the same environmental groups sued over ranching in the park in 2016, Marin County intervened to defend protections for agriculture. The citizen group argues that it should do so once again.

They made a formal request to the Board of Supervisors last week and are waiting to see if it takes up their request. 

Judy Teichman, a Point Reyes Station resident who grew up on a Michigan farm, has been coordinating the group, which includes farmers and others who want to protect the park’s historic ranches.

“Whatever happens to the dairies and ranches at the seashore will have a serious and long-term impact on the life and health of the sparsely populated communities up and down the coast here in West Marin,” Ms. Teichman wrote in a letter to Supervisor Dennis Rodoni this week.

Mr. Rodoni told the Light that the supervisors considered intervening shortly after the suit was filed but decided against it. He said he might consider revisiting that decision.

“The county decided over 18 months ago to not intervene, but no one expected the mediation to take this long,” he said. “I have asked county counsel to reach out to all the attorneys involved in the current mediation on whether intervening at this point could be productive.” 

In a brief filed in the 2016 lawsuit, the county argued that its Local Coastal Program—the planning document that reflects standards outlined in the Coastal Act—calls for continued grazing on Point Reyes and supports long-term leases of at least 10 years. 

“From the county’s perspective, a threat to the viability of ranches within the Seashore is bad by itself, and also leads to a broader threat to agriculture throughout Marin,” the brief stated. “There is a synergy among ranches throughout Marin: an infrastructure, a critical mass of support services, a relationship between products produced by ranches in the park and agricultural activities outside, such as artisan cheese making and farmer’s markets.”

The county argued that agriculture was a buffer against suburban sprawl and a “vital historic and cultural feature that was integral to the park’s founding.”

The citizen group includes a mix of prominent ranchers, dairymen and local residents with no professional connections to agriculture. Among those who signed are Albert Straus of Straus Family Creamery; Anne Sands, a retired environmental consultant and Rotary Club officer; and Susan Stompe, a former Novato mayor and conservationist.

They argue that shutting down the park’s 13 operating ranches and dairies would have broad impacts beyond the economic harm it would inflict on Marin’s interconnected agricultural economy. The families who live on the ranches, most of whom are Latino, would lose their housing and would probably be forced to leave the area, given the lack of affordable housing, Ms. Teichman wrote. As a result, the coast’s workforce would shrink, leading to diminished school enrollment and church congregations. 

“To eliminate the ranch jobs and ranch homes is to make West Marin even whiter and more affluent than it already is,” Ms. Teichman wrote to Supervisor Rodoni.

Ranches have been operating on Point Reyes since the mid-1800s. In the years after the park was authorized in 1962, ranchers who wished to stay were granted reservations of use that were subsequently renewed with leases.

The pending lawsuit against the park was brought by three nonprofit environmental groups—the Resource Renewal Institute, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Western Watersheds Project. When they sued the park in 2016 for failing to update an outdated 1980 general management plan, ranchers intervened to assert their interests, and the county later intervened to represent its own. 

The park settled with the nonprofits, agreeing to update its plan. In the interim, ranches and dairies continued operating on short-term leases that make long-term planning and investment difficult. 

In 2021, the park released its updated management plan with elements that disappointed both the ranchers and environmentalists. The plan granted 20-year lease extensions and allowed limited culling of free-ranging elk herds, which ranchers say eat expensive forage and damage farm infrastructure. But it also prevented ranchers from growing silage and limited their ability to diversify by raising chickens or planting row crops.

Shortly after the update was released, the plaintiffs sued the park again and the plan was put on hold. The suit challenged the adequacy of the environmental assessment the park conducted on the impacts of ranching.

The parties conducting the settlement negotiations have periodically updated the court on their progress. Their next update is expected by Oct. 20.