Kevin Lunny in front of his harvest of Pacific Oysters
Victory for Kevin Lunny of Drake’s Bay Oyster Farm. The National Park Service was caught for using bad science to support their assertion that the oyster farm was polluting the pristine Bay where Sir Francis Drake pulled into make ship repairs on the illustrious Magellan. Drake led this second expedition to sail around the world in a voyage lasting from 1577 to 1580 up to Vancouver Island.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) on June 26, 2009, attached a rider to a spending bill that would allow California’s largest commercial shellfish farm to continue operating in a Bay Area national park.
Drakes Bay Oyster Co. has been battling the National Park Service to extend its business operation beyond a 2012 federal deadline. The 1,100-acre farm property inside the Point Reyes National Seashore was slated to become protected wilderness in three years.
Feinstein’s bill would prolong oysterman Kevin Lunny’s lease for 10 years, even though an Interior Department attorney concluded that any extension of the operation would violate the federal Wilderness Act.
Lunny said he was thrilled at the prospect of the lease extension. “We feel fortunate to have an elected official who is really willing to dig down and understand these issues that we may see as small local issues,” Lunny said. Feinstein “understands how important this resource is to our community and to our region,” he added.
His family owned this business, as well as an organic beef business there in Point Reyes Peninsula, north of San Francisco Bay about fifty miles. He is contemplating starting, with some students from Santa Cruz, the first scallop farm.
Drake’s Bay is a member of the Marin Organic Cooperative.
Hurray!