The California Coastal Commission approved the Point Reyes National Seashore’s water quality monitoring program last week, after five hours of public comments and a competing motion by commissioners that nearly killed the plan.
The lack of accord among commissioners made it clear that activists’ warnings about manure-tainted creeks and decrepit ranch septic systems had made their mark on the state’s top coastal regulators. But a 5-6 vote struck down Commissioner Caryl Hart’s motion to reject the strategy. Her motion would have rescinded the commission’s approval of the seashore’s broader general management plan amendment, which will offer 20-year leases to longtime seashore ranchers.
Commissioner Donne Brownsey’s motion to approve the plan with minor modifications passed by the same margin: 6 to 5. All the commissioners reiterated questions about ranching and seemed reluctant to give the park a stamp of approval, but most acknowledged their limited purview.
“Some might say that dairies don’t belong on coastal prairies,” Commissioner Mike Wilson said. “But that is not what we’re here to talk about. We’re here to talk about water quality.”
Coastal commission staff recommended approving the strategy, which involves inspections of ranches by state and county regulatory agencies, newly restarted water quality testing on the Pacific Ocean side of the Point Reyes peninsula and an array of management practices to be specified in the new ranch leases. Cassidy Teufel, a senior environmental scientist with the commission, called the plan a “monumental change from the status quo.”
Ultimately, the commissioners’ last-minute modifications were minor. They asked the park to return annually for an informational hearing on water quality, including an enforcement report on any violations by ranchers and a discussion of how the park is continuing to fund the plan.
Like all the commission’s hearings on seashore policy in the past two years, the decision was informed by the debate over whether grazing and milking operations belong in the federal park. Many public commenters said the park’s water quality monitoring plan had improved since commissioners last reviewed it in April, but nevertheless urged them to reject it and demand stricter, more specific enforcement.
Days before the hearing, Turtle Island Restoration Network released a report by an independent environmental engineer that detailed unsafe levels of fecal indicator bacteria in several of the park’s lagoons and creeks. Scott Webb, Turtle Island’s director of advocacy and policy, was among several speakers who invoked the results as evidence that cattle operations were sullying the federally protected coastline.
The latest iteration of the water quality strategy came several months after the first version was rejected unanimously by the commission, and Mr. Webb argued it was a reactive scramble, not a proactive plan to punish ranchers for polluting. “Can you all imagine if I consistently dumped raw sewage into the ocean, and I got to work with law enforcement as to how, when and if I’m held accountable?” he asked the commissioners. “Absolutely ridiculous and inconsistent.”
But after the meeting, Mr. Webb struck a more optimistic tone. “I do believe the coastal commissioners were actually sending a message to the park,” he told the Light. “It was unanimous that it was a bad idea to have ranching out there, and I thought that was a paradigm shift.”
Morgan Patton, executive director of the Environmental Action Committee of West Marin, also asked the commission to reject the strategy unless the park made several changes. Any ranchers in violation of water quality standards, Ms. Patton said, should have to reduce their herd size as a consequence.
Park deputy superintendent Anne Altman later said the park can use herd reductions as one of its tools in managing non-compliant ranches, but declined to prioritize it as Ms. Patton and Commissioner Brownsey suggested. “We don’t want to use a blunt tool when we have many tools at our disposal,” Ms. Altman said.
Ms. Patton also stressed the importance of making all monitoring information publicly available. The park’s new two-year interim leases should be posted online before they are finalized, and the results of water tests and corrective actions identified by the park should all be posted online in real time, not annually.
“The commission nor the public cannot afford to wait until the end of the year to know if monitoring and corrective action are happening,” Ms. Patton said, “or if the strategy is falling apart.”
The more than 50 commenters each got only one minute to speak because of time constraints. They included prominent voices from the nonprofits involved in litigation against the park and activists who objected to other components of the park’s general management plan amendment, including the option to cull tule elk from the Drakes Beach herd.
Animal rights activist Jane Velez-Mitchell presented a music video for an anthemic folk song that juxtaposed footage of protesters at the Point Reyes elk fence with a singer asking: “Are you for the elk?/Are you for the earth?/Are you for the future of the creatures and the dirt?”
When the commission began to deliberate, questions emerged about the separate and overlapping enforcement responsibilities of the park, the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board and the Marin County division of Environmental Health Services. The latter two agencies conducted inspections this year that found water quality issues in Kehoe Creek and faulty or failing septic systems on several ranches.
The inspections have already led to a list of corrective actions on one dairy that must be taken by November, and to new septic systems on two other ranches. When Commissioner Hart asked about the water quality control board’s enforcement power should that dairy fail to comply, Laurie Taul, a representative for the agency, said it can fine dairies up to $15,000 a day. Before the park reinvigorated its water quality plan, the control board was not monitoring or enforcing standards as strictly in the seashore, she said, because the area was not identified as an impaired watershed.
Ms. Altman assured the commission that the park believes it has the budget to maintain the new water quality strategy in the coming years, and she agreed to return next year for an informational hearing. In the meantime, she told commissioners, the park will post the interim two-year leases to its website after they are finalized this fall.
Some commissioners remained unconvinced. Commissioner Dayna Bochco called the problem of cattle manure a “travesty” and voiced her fervent opposition to long-term ranching leases. “There isn’t a person who has the ability to think straight who thinks this is a good idea,” she said.
At the close of the hearing, Commissioners Bochco, Hart, Sara Aminzadeh, Linda Escalante and Carole Groom voted against accepting the strategy. Commissioners Brownsey, Wilson, Meagan Harmon, Steve Padilla, Katie Rice and Roberto Uranga, who voted to approve it, outnumbered them by one.