The Paradox of Preservation Laura Watt on the Drakes Bay Oyster Controversy Sam’s Grill, Tuesday, January 10, 5 p.m.
Professor Laura Watt of Sonoma State University will read from her acclaimed new book, The Paradox of Preservation, this Tuesday evening January 10 at 5 p.m. on the patio of Sam’s Grill, 374 Bush Street, San Francisco. Drakes Bay Oyster Company oysters will be served, and Briscoe Ivester & Bazel LLP will provide James Beard Award-winning hors d’oeuvres. All are welcome.
Professor Watt’s book uses the working landscape of the Point Reyes National Seashore, just north of San Francisco, to explore the question “What makes a park a park?” Point Reyes has been in farming and ranching for well more than a century, with Drakes Bay Oyster farm at its center. Those farmers and ranchers have taken great care of the lands and waters of Point Reyes, keeping it pastoral and preserving the cultural and historical heritage of Point Reyes. The Federal Government through the National Park Service was enticed to acquire Point Reyes to preserve this landscape and this heritage. Initially, the Park Service supported the continuation of these farms and ranches. But in recent years, the Park Service changed predilection and elected to expel the oyster farm to create a faux wilderness in the midst of this working landscape. The controversy that ensued tested whether people can ever work in harmony with nature in a park.
Briscoe Ivester & Bazel LLP represented Drakes Bay Oyster Company in the federal lawsuit over the Park Service’s—actually Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar’s—decision. One panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 3-0 in favor of the oyster farm, but a subsequent panel split 2-1 against the farm, with the deciding vote cast by a visiting district court judge from Ohio. Put another way, of the five Ninth Circuit judges who weighed in on whether the oyster farm was legally entitled to stay, four decided yes, only one no, and yet the Drakes Bay Oyster Company lost.
In the end, the Supreme Court declined to review the Ninth Circuit decision, and the oyster farm was forced to close at the end of 2014, its many workers and their families (who lived on the site) made to pack up and leave West Marin County. The fate of many of those workers and their families is uncertain. Secretary Salazar left his Cabinet post to become a partner in the powerful East Coast law firm WilmerHale. In August 2016 he was selected to head Hillary Clinton’s transition team.
Drakes Bay Oyster Company now sources its oysters from Puget Sound and elsewhere.
If you wish to stay for dinner after the reading and signing, reservations are recommended. Please phone Sam’s at 415.421.0594 or use Open Table.
John Briscoe and Peter Prows
Briscoe Ivester & Bazel LLP
155 Sansome Street, 7th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94104
Telephone: (415) 402-2700
Fax: (415) 398-5630
