A Big Ugly Fight Over Tiny Little Oysters
By Steve Casimiro on February 25th, 2013
Why should anybody give the slightest hoot about an oyster farm in the middle of California’s Point Reyes National Seashore? It turns out, a lot of people do — Tea Party activists are flaming the federal government for upholding a 40-year-old agreement to dismantle the operation and create the first marine wilderness in the Lower 48. The Lunny family bought the farm in 2005 and signed the agreement to close it last fall but now is suing to keep it open. Er, we changed our minds. Despite the pact to shutter the farm, conservatives are screaming of government overreach, but they fail to note that the Lunnys’ rent is a fraction of market rates, that the family’s grazing fees to run cattle in the park are one-third of what it would pay on private land, that the Park Service spent $50,000 to upgrade farm buildings when other lessees pay for their own upkeep, or that for six years the Lunnys have been operating without required permits. Oops. Via LA Times.
Read more stories like this at Adventure Journal.
To be clear, this oyster farm is probably the coolest spot in Northern California, and holds a lot of personal significance to me and countless others. I see it as a classic example of big government overextending its reach to squash small business. I voted Green Party in this past election FYI.
So, a longstanding legal agreement, public and unmodified, should take a back seat to your subjective, personal point of view? That doesn’t really sound like a big gov’t problem. Maturity and perspective problem? Maybe.