Will the Wilderness Act be Diluted in Drakes Estero
![handle is hein.journals/ecolwcur39 and id is 46 raw text is: Will the Wilderness Act Be Diluted in
Drakes Estero?
Nell Green Nylen, Elisabeth Long, Mary Loum,
Heather Welles, Dan Carlin, Brynn Cook, and Sage Adams
INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND
Drakes Bay Oyster Company (DBOC)1 runs a commercial shellfish
farming operation in Drakes Estero, a 2,500-acre network of five finger-like
bays that extend into the Point Reyes Peninsula, north of San Francisco,
California.2 In 1976, Congress designated more than 25,000 acres of
wilderness and 8,003 acres (including the Estero) of potential wilderness within
the Point Reyes National Seashore.3 This marked the first time Congress used
the potential wilderness designation, creating a new category for areas that
would become full wilderness without further legislative action once temporary
uses inconsistent with wilderness values ceased.4 Since that time,
Copyright C 2012 by Nell Green Nylen, Elisabeth Long, Mary Loum, Heather Welles, Dan Carlin,
Brynn Cook, and Sage Adams.
* The authors belong to the Environmental Law Society (ELS) at the University of California,
Berkeley, School of Law. ELS, the Berkeley chapter of the National Association of Environmental Law
Societies (NAELS), is a student group that engages its members in major environmental issues through
advocacy campaigns, comments on administrative actions, and public events. See ENVIRONMENTAL
LAW SOCIETY, http://www.boalt.org/els (last visited Apr. 20, 2012); NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF
ENVIRONMENTAL LAW SOCIETIES, http://www.naels.org/ (last visited Apr. 20, 2012). Nell Green Nylen
has a J.D. (2012) from Berkeley Law and a Ph.D. (2005) in Geological and Environmental Sciences
from Stanford University. Elisabeth Long is a J.D. Candidate (2014) and former National Environmental
Policy Act (NEPA) Planner for the U.S. Forest Service. Mary Loum is a J.D. Candidate (2014) with a
B.S. (2008) in Marine Biology. Heather Welles is a J.D. Candidate (2014). Dan Carlin is a J.D.
Candidate (2013). Brynn Cook is an undergraduate student in Environmental Sciences. Sage Adams is
an Instructional Designer for U.C. Berkeley's Educational Technology Services. We submitted a version
of this Article as a public comment on the Drakes Bay Oyster Company Special Use Permit Draft
Environmental Impact Statement on December 8, 2011.
1. See DRAKES BAY OYSTER COMPANY, http://drakesbayoyster.com/ (last visited Feb. 21, 2012).
2. See NAT'L PARK SERV., DRAKES BAY OYSTER COMPANY SPECIAL USE PERMIT DRAFT EIS
iv-v (2011) [hereinafter DEJS].
3. See An Act to Designate Certain Lands in the Point Reyes National Seashore, California, as
Wilderness, Amending the Act of September 13, 1962 (76 Stat. 538), as Amended (16 U.S.C. 459c-6a),
and for Other Purposes, Pub. L. No. 94-544, § 1, 90 Stat. 2515 (1976).
4. See infra Appendix A, at 66-94 (listing all potential wilderness areas designated by Congress
by year of designation and public law number and noting that the 8,003 acres at Point Reyes is
associated with the Phillip Burton Wilderness, designated initially as the Point Keyes Wilderness); see
a/so infra notes 61-63 and accompanying text (discussing the conversion process from CDPWA to full
wilderness).
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Will the Wilderness Act be Diluted in Drakes Estero
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