Posted on 10/22/2013 3:34:21 PM PDT by nickcarraway
As promised, the Drakes Bay Oyster Co. appealed to an expanded panel of a federal appeals court in San Francisco today to allow it to keep operating at Point Reyes National Seashore.
The oyster farm and owner Kevin Lunny asked an 11-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider a decision in which a smaller panel of the court ruled against the company by a 2 to 1 vote in September.
In that ruling, the smaller panel upheld a federal trial judge’s denial of a preliminary injunction that would have allowed the oyster harvesting to continue until a full trial is held on the company’s lawsuit against the U.S. Interior Department.
The oyster company is challenging former Interior Secretary Kenneth Salazar’s decision last year to refuse a lease extension and thereby enable the site at the national seashore to return to wilderness.
A trial in the court of U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland would be months away, and the current appeal concerns whether the company can stay in business until then.
In the meantime, it is continuing to operate under a short-term temporary injunction granted by the appeals court for the period while it appeals the injunction issue.
Today was the 45-day deadline for the company to file a petition seeking rehearing of the three-judge panel’s Sept. 3 ruling. The oyster company previously announced on Sept. 4 that it planned to do so.
Reconsideration by an 11-judge panel is known as en banc review. The appeals court receives about 1,000 petitions per year for such review and grants about 20, according to a court spokesman.
The petition contends the smaller panel’s ruling conflicts with U.S. Supreme Court decisions on “questions of exceptional importance” concerning judicial review of agency decisions.
In the Sept. 3, ruling, the panel majority said a 2009 federal law gave Salazar the authority to refuse to renew the lease. It also said Lunny took over the remainder of a 40-year lease from another company in 2004 with “full disclosure” that the department did not intend to renew the permit when it expired in 2012.
The farm grows oysters on 1,000 acres of submerged lands in Drakes Estero, an estuary of Drakes Bay, and packages them on 1.5 acres of land along the shoreline. It says it produces more than a third of all oysters grown in California.
The appeals court has no deadline for acting on the petition. If it declines to grant a rehearing, the oyster company could appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Aside from military bases and a few office complexes, the federal government should not own land. With only a few exceptions, all federal lands should be deeded over to the states. Lease-holders should be given an option to buy.
government should not own land not used for a proscribed governmental purpose
oysters are also good for the environment an adult oyster will filter 50 gallons of water a day and consume a lot of algae with can help restore the eco balance of a bay or salt pond when nitrogen runoff can harm a lot of young fish by algae removing oxygen from the water also, A farm like this could be home to a hundred million + oysters, the cages for the oysters also provide habitat for young game fish.
Not to mention the jobs created.
I’m sure the business owner was an Obama supporter.
Probably not any more. Allot of pinkos in Marin county are having their eyes opened.
bump
This is pure Agenda 21/ Wildlands Project. They are doing the same thing in the oceans, closing the productive bottom areas to fishing.
http://citizenreviewonline.org/special_issues/wildlands_map.jpg
If there ever was a person who personified the term “Little Shit” it was Salazar, the dictator from Colorado.
Let’s see: He will put an Oyster company and its employees out of work. Possibly put the cattle farms out of business.
Decrease the tax-contributing base. Expand unemployment claims. Wreck lives and businesses.
OK, I’ve got it. Salazar is part of Obama’s marxist destruction of the free enterprise system. Now that makes sense.
Guess the old marxist slogan came true - “People before profits”, though jobs are for “the people” and the “profits” feed the hungry.
As Comrades Obama and Salazar said: “Yes we did”!
The Pearl of Great Price
As I said last time I saw this case, I have no sympathy for the plaintiffs. My recollection was this was a 40 year lease, then denied for renewal.
Perfectly within the rights of the land owner — the Federal Government in trust for the American people and not just Mr. Lunny (I think that’s his name).
Now, whether the Federal Government should own land is another argument but not applicable in this case.
Yes, it sucks for them and I wish them the best on their next endeavour. Perhaps the interior department should pay the Oyster Farm company the price of the good will and valuable consideration, or find them somewhere more applicable for them to set up an oyster farm ... heck, give em a grant to find another Oyster farm.
The business is not located in Fukushima. Is there some data of toxic levels of cesium, strontium and plutonium in Drake’s Estero? Would that not have been trumpeted from the top of the Golden Gate bridge?
Seafood caught off the coast of CA is contaminated already. Eat at your own risk.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
