Reporting from Point Reyes National Seashore — Kevin Lunny is an oysterman, the proprietor of Drakes Bay Oyster Co., the largest oyster farm in California. He operates this and other family businesses from the lush coastal enclave of Point Reyes National Seashore, which means he has the National Park Service as a landlord.
Oyster farm dispute roils Marin County
Kevin Lunny says he's a 'little guy' up against the Park Service, but he has violated state and federal pacts for four years.
Drakes Bay Oyster Co. oyster farmer Manuel Manzo stacks oysters on a barge… (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles…)
His might otherwise be a familiar tale: a tenant engaged in an acrimonious battle to avoid eviction. But that's where this story veers into a complex web of alleged conspiracies and politicking worthy of a Cold War spy novel.
Lunny, who portrays himself as the local "little guy" in the saga, alleges that Park Service officials have engaged in scientific misconduct to portray his oyster operation as harmful to federally protected harbor seals. He says they are in cahoots with the California Coastal Commission and environmentalists to run him out of business and boot him out of the national seashore.
The flawed-science charge was affirmed by the National Academies of Science. The rest, however, remains in dispute and has stirred up western Marin County, which prides itself on its pastoral history and which fears that the federal government aims to end that tradition on its lands.
By the federal law that founded the national seashore, Lunny's permit area, which includes the tidal area where explorer Sir Francis Drake is believed to have made landfall 430 years ago, will be designated as wilderness in 2012.
But Lunny doesn't want to go. The personable 52-year-old has enlisted powerful friends to aid his cause, including lawyers, a Washington lobbyist and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who has repeatedly interceded on his behalf.
Feinstein wrote legislation that passed this fall to allow Lunny's business to continue at Point Reyes for 10 years beyond the permit's sunset.
Correspondence and telephone logs obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that Feinstein contacted officials at the National Park Service and at the Interior Department in Washington numerous times, seeking redress for Lunny.
Laura Wilkinson, Feinstein's press secretary, said the senator's only motivation in helping Lunny was to assist a constituent who "has been treated unfairly by the National Park Service, which has used flawed or incomplete science with the purpose of driving the historic oyster operation out of the area."
For the last two years, Lunny and his allies here have run a potent campaign to discredit Park Service officials and scientists and attempted to derail the Senate confirmation of the new Park Service director, who once oversaw the region.
The tumult prompted investigations by Interior's inspector general, the National Academies of Science and the Marine Mammal Commission that have cost taxpayers millions of dollars.
Lunny's oyster operation, in the meantime, has a four-year record of violating state and federal agreements and permits. This month, the California Coastal Commission levied $61,000 in fines against the oyster farm for operating outside Lunny's permit and in a protected harbor seal area. Lunny says the legal trouble is part of a campaign to single him out and shut him down.
Peter Douglas, the commission's executive director, characterized Lunny's history of infractions as "pathetic" and dismissed the notion of a witch hunt. Lunny, he said, still does not have a required coastal development permit. And federal officials note that he never signed the lease agreement, as required.
Lunny grew up on a ranch in the seashore. In 2005 he and his brothers bought the oyster farm in Drakes Estero, taking over its failing operation and an existing agreement with the Park Service that the business would cease operations in 2012, as Congress intended.
Almost from the start, Lunny said, park managers looked for ways to force him out of the seashore. Tension grew as Lunny sought ways to extend his permit.
Federal reviews of the Park Service treatment of Lunny have yielded a mixed bag.
The most damaging finding came last May from the National Academies of Science, which concluded that a report prepared by Sarah Allen, the national seashore's senior scientist, "selectively presented, over-interpreted or misrepresented the available scientific information on potential impacts of the oyster mariculture operation."
The Park Service apologized and removed the flawed analysis from its website.
But some say there's more going on. Corey Goodman, a neurobiologist who has spent two years reviewing the science issues, claims that a massive coverup is underway and the actions of some Park Service officials are "criminal."
"This fits the definition of scientific misconduct," said Goodman, who has filed federal ethics complaints against a handful of Park Service officials. In another federal investigation, a scientist said Allen told him she compiled the report to stymie Lunny's attempts to extend his lease.
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