Last month, three environmental groups asked a federal judge for a preliminary injunction restraining the Point Reyes National Seashore from issuing a ranch management plan or long-term ranch leases.
Now in response, the park service, ranchers and the county have defended those actions, describing the critical importance of the ranch plan and the perils—including deleterious environmental effects—of forcing ranchers to rely on one-year leases for the foreseeable future, according to recently filed court documents.
The park also wrote in filings that the process to update the general plan—which started in the late 1990s and lasted until at least 2011, when the park had a second internal draft—was “terminated,” meaning that an update would have to start from scratch.
In the suit filed in February, three nonprofits—the Resource Renewal Institute, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Western Watersheds Project—asserted that the park’s prioritizing of the ranch plan over an update of the seashore’s General Management Plan unfairly favored agricultural interests. They want the park to stop working on the ranch plan until it updates its 1980 general plan.
Additionally, last week the parties met in an initial settlement conference, but the single publicly available document about the meeting states only that attendees “agreed to deadlines” about “next steps.”
In making their case for a preliminary injunction, the plaintiffs had argued that a general plan is necessary to guide all other management activities. Those activities include the ranch plan, which they believe would “lock in” agriculture in the park, particularly if ranches received the 20-year leases advocated by then-Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar in 2012. (Lease terms have typically been five or 10 years.)
The plaintiffs also asserted that the general plan was dropped because of pressure from ranchers and their allies.
But in court documents, the federal government countered the idea that updating a general plan for the seashore makes sense at this moment in time, particularly given the urgency around issues the ranch plan will address. Those issues include tule elk and leases, which the government said were a focus of many of the thousands of public comments submitted when the ranch plan process began.
The government argued that a general plan is just that: a broad planning document that will not address the many specific environmental concerns the plaintiffs themselves raised in regard to ranching—such as silage mowing, fencing and elk. Updating the general plan would delay any answers on how to address those issues.
A general plan, seashore superintendent Cicely Muldoon wrote in her court declaration, “does not typically delve into discrete issues. If we were to prepare a revised [general plan] for the seashore, it would not provide the type of site-specific and detailed guidance that is most needed on ranching operations and elk management.”
In fact, one park employee wrote in a declaration that one of the elk herds in the pastoral zone could double in population in the next decade. Ms. Muldoon wrote that the ranch plan could answer broad questions about ranching as well as delve into the weeds about which practices are best for what activities and in which areas—arguing against the idea that the plan has a predetermined outcome.
“Because the [ranch plan] is focused on a defined area of the seashore with clearly identified management issues, the [ranch plan] process is best suited to addressing both the broader questions that plaintiffs care about (e.g., the future extent of ranching within the Seashore and the future management of elk on pastoral lands) and the detailed issues and concerns that they expressed in their comments (e.g., fencing, silage, mowing),” she wrote.
Ms. Muldoon also said she does not believe Mr. Salazar’s memo from 2012 is an “edict” requiring 20-year leases, but instead an order to consider those longer terms. And the ranch plan will include issues plaintiffs brought up in the lawsuit, such as climate change and air and water quality, she said.
The park is also considering “broadening the scope of the ranch plan to consider alternatives that consider alternate uses of lands within the planning area,” she wrote.
Ms. Muldoon also said that all ranches in what the park is calling the Point Reyes Ranches Historic District, a 22,000-acre area, “have been determined eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.” The park is working on getting the district officially listed in on the register.
As for why the seashore stopped work on the general plan—the last public announcement about it was made in 2008—the federal government’s court brief cites many factors for the delays, including limited staff, a new seashore superintendent, major necessary revisions (particularly in regard to environmental consequences), and the storm around Drakes Bay Oyster Company. After that settled down, “other issues, in particular the need to manage an increased number of elk on pastoral lands, eclipsed the need for a new general plan in order of importance,” federal lawyers wrote.
In fact, the entire general plan process was actually terminated, the park said. Undertaking an update now would not mean releasing the draft (of which there are are both 2010 in 2011 versions) because, Ms. Muldoon wrote, the document does not represent the range of options they would now wish to offer. She believes creating a new general plan would take at least five years.
For their part, ranchers focused on different issues in court filings, in particular the economic and environmental consequences of shelving the plan and operating on short, one-year operating agreements for the foreseeable future.
One major point emphasized by many ranchers who filed declarations is that short-term leases thwart needed environmental improvements. For instance, David Evans, who leases Rogers Ranch and other land near Abbotts Lagoon, has received funds in the past from the Natural Resources Conservation Service to “diversify water sources” on the ranch. Doing so encourages cattle to spread out, helping to prevent overgrazing and erosion. He says more grants would allow him to plant native seeds and fix stock ponds, which he notes provide red-legged frog habitat. But one-year leases make that restoration work impossible.
“NRCS cost-sharing grant projects often take many years to complete and maintain, so if I am restricted to one-year leases, I will be unable to obtain these grants. I understand that without leases of at least 5 or 10 years, the NRCS will not award cost-sharing grants,” he wrote.
Bob McClure, of I Ranch, says much the same. He wrote that his ranch has undertaken a number of environmental projects, including building manure ponds to prevent runoff and a barn costing over $1 million. He would like to do more, and has plans to build a $400,000 barn that would improve water quality. But his one-year agreement prevents him from obtaining funding.
Furthermore, Mr. McClure said that he signed a one-year lease starting in 2013—after operating for many years on five-year leases—because the park indicated that the ranch plan process would move swiftly. “Our current situation—operating under one-year [letters of authorization]—is completely untenable. It forces us to put critical investments and improvements on hold because we do not even have the security that we will be able to remain at the Seashore and continue our dairy operations while the planning process and potential subsequent litigation occurs,” he wrote.
A hearing for the motion on the preliminary injunction is scheduled for Nov. 9.