Our mission is to protect the habitat of Puget Sound tidelands from the underregulated expansion of new and intensive shellfish aquaculture methods. These methods were never anticipated when the Shoreline Management Act was passed. They are transforming the natural tideland ecosystems in Puget Sound and are resulting in a fractured shoreline habitat. In South Puget Sound much of this has been done with few if any meaningful shoreline permits and with limited public input. It is exactly what the Shoreline Management Act was intended to prevent.

Get involved and contact your elected officials to let them you do not support aquaculture's industrial transformation of Puget Sound's tidelands.

Governor Inslee:

Monday, November 10, 2014

Drakes Bay Oyster: Black Helicopters Sighted About Point Reyes National Seashore

[Update 11/13: Portion of Hog Island lease in Tomales Bay closed by California Department of Health due to fecal coliform. (see Point Reyes Light article - requires subscription) Despite claims from Corey Goodman and Peter Prows of how well oysters filter water of fecal coliform, Tomales Bay tells another story. Hog Island Oyster has had a portion of its lease area closed to harvesting due to elevated levels of fecal coliform. This despite an abundance of oysters in Tomales Bay. Mr. Goodman and his sheep farm, along with other cattle ranchers along the shorelines of Tomales Bay, might consider where the pressure to clean up their discharges into the bay is going to be coming from. It will not be their bogey men written about in their October 6 article.] 

Peter Prows and Corey Goodman Claim Protect Our Shoreline
Part of Some Scheme to Eliminate Agriculture
on Point Reyes National Seashore

Flights of fantasy - no charge
In what borders on hyperbolic exclamations of paranoia, Peter Prows and Corey Goodman have claimed this blog site is somehow part of a scheme to eliminate cattle ranching on Point Reyes National Seashore. Quoting from an October 6 post in which it was suggested an opportunity exits to see how effective oysters are in clearing the water, when harvesting of planted oysters is completed at the end of the year, they instead use Glen Beck logic to make this site part of a "master plan" whose sole purpose is to eliminate ranching from Point Reyes Seashore. To be clear, this site is not part of a "plan" to end cattle ranching or sheep farming on Point Reyes or nearby.

They're coming after your minds.
Get your tinfoil hats out!

Control the press, you control their minds -  and willingness to speak of written memories?
Mr. Prows and Mr. Goodman have put in their minds, and now in printed words through the Point Reyes Light (which Mr. Goodman's Marin Media Institue purchased in 2010), a story of such fantasy it puts in question what legal or investing advice flows from the two authors. In their co-authored piece, retired (2003) superintendent of Channel Islands National Park Tim Setnicka and Santa Rosa Island are referred to. In a recent speech (which the PRL said "sometimes sounded like a conspiracy") Mr. Setnicka referred to a $28 million sale by Vail and Vickers Company of Santa Rosa Island which allowed occupancy for 25 years. In 2011, what had evolved into a private hunting reserve for wealthy clients, the lease came to an end and the National Park Service allowed Santa Rosa Island to become available to all citizens. Mr. Setnicka, Mr. Goodman, and Mr. Prows apparently feel the agreement signed between the Vail and Vickers Company, who chose to convert the island to a private hunting reserve in 1998, somehow makes clear ranching on Point Reyes National Seashore is doomed. Not clarified by Mr. Setnicka in his speech was while it may have taken him from 2003 until October of this year to "speak" of his "conspiracy" belief, he did write a 3 part series for the Sanata Barbara News-Press in 2006.

Nov. 11: Nita Vail to speak of the olden days.
 Nita Vail as a child on Santa Rosa Island

From the horse's mouth - November 11
Perhaps some clarity to just what went on with the Vail family's hunting reserve and the National Park Service, including what role Mr. Setnicka played while employed by the Park Service, will be heard on November 11 when Nita Vail, daughter of the family whose lease ended in 2011, speaks at West Marin School. Ms. Vail may also be willing to discuss who it is that invited her and Mr. Setnicka to speak and perhaps shed some light on the $28 million agreement signed over 25 years ago by the Vail and Vickers Company. She may also be willing to comment on testimony before Congress by Vail family member Tim Vail in 2007 which included:
 To ease in the transition,[to a National Park] part of the island’s sale included an important provision to allow the V&V [Vail and Vickers] cattle and wildlife operations to continue within the Park through the year 2011. Specifically the family was given a 25-year lease on a 7-acre parcel with right of use and occupancy. Separately, V&V was promised by the Park Service the cattle and wildlife operations were to continue for 25 years through the use of mutually agreed upon successive 5-year Special Use Permits.
Know your enemy - or who at least who it is
It is best for the Point Reyes Light to steer from the speculation and conspiracy theories submitted by others about who cattle ranchers and sheep farmers should fear. Were they to spend a small amount of time researching water quality, they would find it is the shellfish industry's concerns about clean water the cattle ranchers and sheep farmers should fear. It is not this site.




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