Family-run dairies on private lands in Marin and Sonoma have been going out of business. One could expect that an advocate of dairy ranching like Albert Straus, himself involved in the industry, would focus on supporting these remaining family-owned dairies, so they might survive.
Instead, he is suggesting that four entirely new dairy farms be installed at Point Reyes National Seashore, a proposal that comes with great confusion and concern. He is asking the Department of the Interior to upend plans and agreements that were designed to resolve years of conflict.
It’s a misdirected proposal that will throw the community into chaos, when what it needs is certainty. Such an about-face would surely invite new litigation and endanger new agreements—including 20-year leases for ranches in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area—that have the support of the ranchers themselves.
The Interior Department and the National Park Service should continue as planned, with long-term leases to the remaining ranchers and an operating agreement with the Nature Conservancy to implement conservation actions, including targeted conservation grazing on other lands. Here’s why.
Our organizations, Save Our Seashore and the National Parks Conservation Association, supported continued ranching, including dairying, on this protected landscape if it could be done sustainably. Several years ago, when the park service was studying the issuance of longer-term leases, we were at the literal table many times with the park’s dairy ranchers to try to hammer out a proposal. It became clear that factors within and outside of ranchers’ control would make that nearly impossible.
Within the national seashore boundaries, there were findings of substandard ranch-worker housing, some of which lacked basic septic systems. Marin County had documented evidence of raw sewage discharge. A landfill, created by filling a trench with junk such as old cars, was discovered by park visitors.
In another instance, a dairy was found by the Regional Water Quality Control Board to have insufficient manure storage and drainage systems that would overflow in storms, carrying contaminated runoff through streams that flowed directly to an elephant seal breeding colony. Additionally, market challenges have made it difficult for dairy ranches to stay profitable. Climate change, including drought, has added significant stress to water resources and available forage in this specific area.
Following years of litigation, the ranchers and the environmental groups involved decided to invite a third party, the Nature Conservancy, to assess possible solutions, including whether a privately funded buyout of existing ranch leases could lead to all parties settling. Every party voluntarily agreed to the resolution.
While the ranchers were paid from the settlement, any severance pay they offered their workers was privately arranged and never disclosed. To fill the void, Marin County, along with CLAM, West Marin Community Services and the Nature Conservancy, raised public and private funds and made great strides in housing and transition support for the workers.
There have been huge community efforts to turn the page after more than a decade of controversy and litigation. The next steps to restore the coastal prairie are being planned, including targeted conservation grazing and coordination with the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria. We expect the park service to identify historic buildings to preserve and to invest in interpretation programs and signage that highlight ranching history.
The idea of rebuilding dairies in the seashore is not logistically feasible. Non-federal permits like dairy waivers would be needed, and securing new permits would be difficult at all levels. The dairies have already been deconstructed—loafing barns demolished and manure ponds decommissioned—making it expensive to rebuild. Investing in existing Marin and Sonoma dairies that already have functioning infrastructure would cost much less and ensure a diversified supply network.
Straus’s idea also involves housing these proposed dairy workers in the seashore. That, too, is not viable, as the condition of homes and trailers in the park is extremely poor. In the future, if structures can be renovated, they should be repurposed to house the scientists, janitors, trail workers, law enforcement officers and other park staff who currently don’t have access to housing near their jobs.
Rarely is policy making perfect, but the reality is that there was a free-market transaction that didn’t involve taxpayer dollars. This was a private-sector business decision using private funding, with a consensual outcome to close the dairies.
Americans love their national parks and wildlife. They also love local businesses. Both can exist in the path laid out by the settlement, but not with Straus’s wild idea. Reopening this closed chapter would reignite a conflict that the community has spent a decade working to resolve. Let’s use rational thinking and support the agreements that benefit the community, the departing ranchers and the remaining ranches.
Gordon Bennett is president of Save Our Seashore and lives in Inverness. Neal Desai is regional director of the National Parks Conservation Association. He lives in Sacramento.