Not withstanding the negative outcry from the community on the “Oystergate” video and unbeknownst to filmmaker Nicole Adams, the four-minute, one-sided opinion piece has brought to light another twist in the story of Drakes Bay Oyster Company and Point Reyes National Seashore. Much of what participants said in the video contradicted their previous testimonies as interpreted and reported by federal agents. Read full story...
But according to those interviewed both in the video and for the Department of Interior’s Inspector General report released in 2008, the information in the federal report was incomplete and out of context. They also said that their statements in the video did not contradict the IG report, but instead added more factual information to the story.
“The IG report was incomplete, in that it did not include the things that I testified in full,” said Ken Fox, President of the Tomales Bay Association who is seen in the video speaking of a meeting he attended with park superintendent Don Neubacher, Jerry Meral of Environmental Action Committee of West Marin; and Gordon Bennett of the Sierra Club’s Marin Group.
“What I said in the video reflected what I testified to the IG,” Fox said this week. “The IG, however, also asked me questions that went along the lines of ‘Was there any discussion of shutting down the operation prior to 2012?’ and ‘Did anyone say anything about financially ruining or bankrupting the Lunnys?’ It turns out these were very leading questions that were the only ones that were reflected in the report. Thus, the report was slanted by the IG with respect to my testimony because it was taken out of context.”
Fox said he agreed to be interviewed at park headquarters but ultimately persuaded the agent to conduct the interview outside on a bench near the Red Barn. He said he “felt very uncomfortable” speaking with National Park staff in view and in earshot.
Agents sought to interview many players including Fox after oyster company owner Kevin Lunny claimed that Neubacher and the park service had conversations and had taken actions to actively try to shut down the oyster company prior to the expiration of its lease in 2012. According to the IG report, Lunny claimed Fox told him that during the meeting, Neubacher had an “affirmative reaction” to Bennett and Meral’s suggestion of financially harming DBOC.
The IG reported, “Fox stated that no one spoke of trying to shut DBOC down prior to 2012 and denied that there was any discussion about financially ruining the Lunnys or about putting DBOC out of business. Additionally, Fox said he was not certain that Neubacher had attended the meeting in question.”
The video shows Fox saying, “Gordon Bennett expressed dismay that [Lunny] had bought Johnson’s [Oyster Company] because they say now it will be really hard to get rid of them if he runs it right. ‘We’re not going to be able to get rid of him.’ And this one man said, ‘You know we should really make it difficult for him so that he doesn’t want to continue past 2012.’”
Held in January 2005, the meeting - which was not secret as referred to in the video - had an agenda to talk about forming a new advisory committee for the Seashore and the lands it manages within the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.
According to Fox, an item to discuss the oyster farm and its lease was added as an afterthought. Fox this week said that during the meeting, Bennett suggested making the situation so difficult for Lunny he might want to shut down before 2012. Others at the meeting kept quiet after the comment, Fox said. “It was true that no one said any words to the effect of trying to put Lunny out of business before 2012, and I denied [to investigators] that there was any discussion at the meeting of “financially ruining” or “bankrupting” the Lunnys,” Fox said.
Bennett, for his part doesn’t see how Fox’s comments reflect additions and not contradictions and does not recall making a statement to that effect. “It is impossible for anyone to recall exactly what was said in a meeting over five years ago, but my contemporaneous letter and article is the best record I have and they not only do not support Ken Fox’s recollection, but contradict it.”
Bennett wrote a letter soon after the 2005 meeting staying that Lunny was good steward of his ranch and a Yodeler article with some support for Lunny’s operation, “An escrow is pending that would turn the operation over to a neighboring rancher in the Seashore with a reputation for environmentally sensitive operations,” he wrote in the letter in 2005. But both documents emphatically state that the oyster operation must close in 2012 so the area can covert to federally designated wilderness.
“If I had really stated, as [Fox] claims, that I wanted to ‘make it really difficult for [Lunny] then why would my article in the Sierra Club newspaper describe Mr. Lunny as what I then believed him to be, namely ‘a good steward?’” he said.
The IG also reported that with the exception of Supervisor Steve Kinsey from a meeting in 2007, no one else interviewed in the investigation said Neubacher or NPS officials had indicated that they wanted to shut DBOC down prior to 2012. The list of people interviewed by the IG included Phyllis Faber, cofounder of Marin Agricultural Land Trust, who was also interviewed in the video “Oystergate.”
In the video she expresses dismay over the apparent attack on the oyster operation. “Right after they started cleaning it up, the park tried to put them out of business,” Faber said on camera, seemingly in contradiction to her testimony as reported by federal agents.
In both the IG report and the video, Faber stands by her testimony but believes her words were taken out of context. “I didn’t say anything I regret,” said Faber of the film, adding that she thinks it was produced in poor taste and bad judgment.
Faber said that the amount of scrutiny placed on the Lunny’s by the park service and the California Coastal Commission would give anyone pause. “There is no question that the park is trying to close the farm,” she said.
Fox said while the Tomales Bay Association takes no position on the issue; he did say an adaptive management plan and cooperation between agencies would help matters.
But five years after the meeting the oyster company is in the throes of another financial hurdle. Following on the heels of the IG report and the National Academy of Sciences report, the California Coastal Commission recently fined Lunny over $60,000 for misplacing his clams in an area set aside for harbor seals. Before that, the Coastal Commission fined him a $1,000 dollars per picnic table when he replaced them without a permit.
This week, the Marine Mammal Commission - a federal commission enforcing the Marine Mammal Protection Act - will begin its inquiry into the relationship of harbor seal disturbances and human activity in the estero.
