CA Coastal Commission Claims Oyster Company is Stirring Up Trouble
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
The California Coastal Commission is reprimanding a Point Reyes oyster company for stirring up trouble in Drakes Estero.
The commission says Drakes Bay Oyster Co.'s motorized boats and plastics pollution pose serious threats to marine habitat and wildlife within the federally designated potential wilderness area.
Amy Trainer with the Environmental Action Committee of West Marin says the company's special-use permit with Point Reyes National Seashore prohibits motorized vessels within protected areas during harbor seal breeding season.
"There's noise that stirs up sediment, which affects water quality, which affects all kinds of species. It flushes birds, potentially disturbs harbor seals. "
The oyster company's 40-year lease expires next year, although legislation passed by Congress in 2009 has given the Interior secretary the authority to extend the lease. Trainer says a Draft Environmental Impact Statement from the National Park Service says extending commercial mariculture operations within this sensitive area would be contradictory to wilderness-protection laws.
Trainer says Drakes Estero deserves the full wilderness protection Congress intended.
"It's home to 20 percent of the mainland breeding population of harbor seals in California. It's used by tens of thousands of shorebirds and waterfowl a year. And in the '70s, Congress committed that Drakes Estero would revert to wilderness in 2012."
There are plenty of other places to grow oysters, Trainer says, such as in Tomales Bay, around the corner from Drakes Estero, or in Humboldt or Morro bays.
More information is online at savedrakesbay.org.
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