After Republican members of the House Committee on Natural Resources opened an inquiry this month into the contentious settlement that ends most ranching in the Point Reyes National Seashore, Representative Jared Huffman condemned the probe as “scorched earth partisanship” and said it was time that the affected ranchers weigh in.
“The public and the committee need to hear from them—not from all the people purporting to speak for them,” said Mr. Huffman, the ranking Democratic member on the committee. “How are they feeling?”
Now, the ranchers have answered. In two letters sent late last week to Representative Bruce Westerman, the Arkansas Republican who chairs the committee, every ranching and dairy family departing the seashore offered their unanimous endorsement of the settlement, which was finalized in January between the park service, several environmental groups and 12 beef and dairy operations. The deal requires the families to surrender leaseholds on land their forebears secured generations ago in exchange for payments financed by the Nature Conservancy, said to total about $30 million.
“We support the settlement and urge the Committee not to recommend or take any action that would jeopardize the Point Reyes National Seashore settlement,” the Point Reyes Seashore Ranchers Association wrote. Congress, the group added, should instead “use the lessons learned here in crafting future policy to retain working ranches on public land.”
A second letter, signed by the Nunes, McClure and Kehoe dairy families, stressed that the payouts are “private real estate transactions that both sides agreed to keep confidential, and the ranchers ask that the privacy of their business affairs be respected.”
Both letters described the mounting pressures that ranchers faced, asserting that they had been driven out not by choice but by years of “regulatory oppression” and “predatory litigation” that made the Nature Conservancy’s offer seem like a godsend in a sea of untenable conditions.
“We saw no halt to more lawsuits until plaintiffs got their way and ranching was eliminated with the possibility of individual ranches being targeted,” they wrote.
Another perspective emerged on Monday, when David Evans, founder of Marin Sun Farms and a fourth-generation rancher, and his wife and business partner, Claire Herminjard, wrote to Mr. Westerman praising the committee’s scrutiny while expressing support for the families who took buyouts.
“There is a path here to honor the buyout agreements while protecting ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula,” Mr. Evans told the Light this week. His is one of two ranching families that were not party to the settlement, and to whom the park service offered new 20-year leases.
“The original intent in establishing Point Reyes National Seashore included celebrating its natural beauty and the cultural heritage of ranching that preserves this unique landscape,” they wrote in the letter that was also sent to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “This current settlement is a misguided attempt to protect land that doesn’t need ‘saving.’”
Mr. Huffman doubts the first two letters will temper Republican zeal. “This is too attractive of a political target for them,” he said. “What I hope they will at least do is stop trying to blow up the settlement, because that would devastate these ranching families.”
But this past week, Mr. Evans and Ms. Herminjard have gone beyond letter writing. On Friday, they joined an ongoing lawsuit brought by Bolinas rancher Bill Niman, the sustainable meat pioneer, and his wife, Nicolette Hahn Niman, an environmental lawyer, accusing the park service of violating the National Environmental Policy Act when it revised its general management plan to curtail ranching as part of the negotiated deal.
“This is a vote of no confidence in the park service,” said Peter Prows, the attorney representing both families. “The only two ranchers in the seashore who didn’t settle are now suing. The park service hasn’t been able to build a relationship with them or convince them that they are a competent manager for whatever comes next.”
The suit asks a federal court to set aside the park’s decision and refer the issue to Mr. Burgum, who, as Secretary of the Interior, holds discretion over whether ranching may continue under a 1978 amendment to the seashore’s founding legislation.
“I believe the National Park Service capitulated to environmental groups and the Nature Conservancy to remove ranching from the seashore, and I don’t think the park service needed to do that,” Mr. Evans said. “I think that they could’ve supported ranching more firmly, I think they could have challenged the plaintiffs more firmly, and I think with true, strong leadership in N.P.S., we could have achieved a better ranching future at Point Reyes without buyouts.”
The ranches that are set to shutter occupy 16,000 out of the 18,000 acres once zoned for agriculture in the 71,000-acre park. Mr. Evans, echoing complaints raised by the Nimans, argues that new restrictions leave his operation economically unviable.
“I’m trying to find a way forward with the park service, and that’s why I’ve joined the Niman lawsuit,” he said. “I don’t believe that we’ve been allowed proper input, and we weren’t allowed to negotiate.”
He noted that he and Ms. Herminjard had not seen the details of the park’s new management plan until it became public, leaving them blindsided by new policies and proposals such as land swaps affecting their leasehold.
In a series of meetings since the settlement was announced, Mr. Evans said he has floated compromises he believed would let him “survive in Point Reyes.” The park service rejected each of them.
“They said no on everything that I proposed,” he said. “I was left feeling like they don’t want me here.”