The National Park Service is extending leases for ranches and dairies in the Point Reyes National Seashore—but only for one extra month, heightening questions about whether they will soon be forced to leave.
The lease extensions will expire on Oct. 18, the same day that parties to a lawsuit seeking an end to ranching in the park will give their next court update on efforts to settle the case.
If the ranches and dairies were required to shut down or relocate, more than 100 people would be forced to seek housing elsewhere. Melanie Gunn, a park spokeswoman, could not comment on the confidential mediation talks. But she said that in such a scenario, the park service’s policy would give ranch tenants a reasonable period in which to find new housing.
Ms. Gunn pointed the Light toward information posted on the park’s website. A 2019 survey of people living on the seashore’s agricultural lands counted 188 people, but two operations have closed since then. The park service owns all the buildings and is only allowed to rent them to its own employees, Ms. Gunn said in an email.
“As a result, if ranchers decide to discontinue operations for any reason, all occupants (ranchers and their families and ranch workers and their families) will not be able to continue to live in the park,” she wrote. “If ranchers decide to discontinue operations, the NPS will work with them to provide a reasonable timeframe for ranch occupants to relocate.”
The seashore contains 21 active ranches and dairies, and people reside at 16 of them. If those tenants depart, any remaining housing could be used to accommodate park service employees and their families, Ms. Gunn said. The park has roughly 88 full-time-equivalent employees and offers housing to 30 permanent workers and 10 seasonal workers.
Settlement talks between the park service and three environmental groups are underway to resolve a 2022 lawsuit that challenged an updated park management plan that would have granted 20-year lease extensions to ranchers. The ranchers intervened in the suit to assert their interests and are participants in the mediation.
The confidential talks have been repeatedly extended, most recently in July. At that time, the litigants informed the United States District Court judge hearing the case that they were not yet ready to reach a resolution. It is unclear whether they will announce a settlement at the October session.
“It is not possible to predict the timing of a potential settlement agreement, but the parties remain hopeful this may occur in the next 12 months,” Ms. Gunn said.
The lawsuit was filed by the Resource Renewal Institute, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Western Watersheds Project, groups whose legal battle over Point Reyes has stretched on for eight years, since they first sued the park over ranching in 2016. They argue that the park service is abandoning its conservation duties by allowing commercial agriculture.
The ranching and dairy families agreed to sell their properties to the park service after the Point Reyes National Seashore was authorized in 1962. The park service subsequently granted reservations of use and occupancy that allowed them to continue their operations; since those agreements expired, the park has granted leases of up to 10 years.
The proposed 20-year extensions were reduced to two-year interim leases during the settlement negotiations. Ranchers say the short leases make it impossible for them engage in long-term planning or obtain the bank loans they need to upgrade their operations.
Albert Straus, a leading critic of the park’s agricultural policies, said the new one-month extension is the latest indication that the government intends to shut down businesses that have operated for more than a century. Mr. Straus lives on the eastern shore of Tomales Bay and is the founder and executive chair of Straus Family Creamery, which sources 15 percent of its milk from two of the five remaining dairies in the park.
“Why does it take three years to mediate a lease?” he asked. “They’re trying to wear the ranchers and the farmers and the community down. Everyone is stressed out. Even the kids in the schools are stressed out that they are going to lose their homes. It’s taking a huge toll on our community.”
This article was amended on Aug. 29 to clarify that park spokeswoman Melanie Gunn spoke to the Light only about the park service’s general housing policies, not about the specific scenarios currently covered by the settlement talks.