Fight Over Calif. Oyster Company Splits Chefs And Land Defenders
Drive just an hour and half north of San Francisco and you're in Drakes Estero, or estuary, named for the first English explorer to lay claim to California.
This near-pristine, wind-whipped marine wilderness is a federally protected home for large beds of eelgrass, the base of the marine food chain. The Estero hosts the largest colony of harbor seals on the West Coast, and tens of thousands of resident and migratory birds.
It's also home to the Drakes Bay Oyster Company.
The company plants and harvests about eight million oysters a year, and employs 30 people. Worth an estimated $1.5 million, it's one of the state's largest commercial shellfish operations.
But its future is now in the hands of the U.S. Supreme Court. Drakes Bay Oyster Co. sits on federal land, and its lease has expired. The oyster company is fighting to stay open, while some environmental groups are pushing back. And the debate is dividing the residents of western Marin County.
When Kevin Lunny, who owns the company, bought the operation back in 2004, it had only eight years left on a 40 year federal lease. And the National Park Service told him it wouldn't renew that lease.
Fast forward to November 2012, when then Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, ordered Lunny to wrap up operations within 90 days. But with the pro-bono help of libertarian legal groups, Lunny sued the federal government, arguing that Salazar abused his power.
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