By REBEKAH KEARN, Courthouse News Service July 22, 2014
OAKLAND, Calif. (CN) – The government is illegally forcing a Bay Area oyster farm to shut down, which will devastate the businesses that rely on its oysters, the Tomales Bay Oyster Co. and several other business claim in Federal Court.
Tomales Bay Oyster Co., three restaurants, the Alliance for Local Sustainable Agriculture et al. sued the Department of the Interior, the National Park Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Office of Coastal Resource Management and their top officials, on July 17.
The plaintiffs claim the government ignored its duties under the National Aquaculture Act and the California Coastal Management Program when it issued a memorandum shutting down the Drakes Bay Oyster Co. in November 2012.
Drakes Bay is not a party to the complaint.
Moreover, the decision to close Drakes Bay did not analyze the impacts of the closure on local coastal resources since “an oyster farm had been operating in the same location for approximately eighty years,” according to the 20-page lawsuit.
Drakes Estero, about 25 miles northwest of San Francisco in the Point Reyes National Seashore, is surrounded by Schooner, Barriers, Creamery and Home Bays and serves as the primary drainage point for Point Reyes Peninsula.
Historians believe the Estero is the most likely place where Sir Francis Drake landed in California during his circumnavigation of the world from 1577 to 1580. As such, it has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
