Excerpt
JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour): In Northern California, there's an unusual battle brewing over a renowned oyster farm that's located in a national seashore. The fight is playing out among business, government and some environmentalists. But it's one that's creating strange bedfellows concerned about the outcome.
Spencer Michels reports.
SPENCER MICHELS (Newshour): The Drakes Bay Oyster Company at Point Reyes National Seashore north of San Francisco may be producing its last crop.
When its long-term lease expired last year, the Department of the Interior said the lease was terminated, and ordered the family-owned company to stop planting and harvesting oysters, as the farm has done since the 1930s. And that has provoked a battle with an unlikely cast of characters.
The repercussions extend far beyond this spectacular Pacific Coast enclave, to the restaurants of the Bay Area and all the way to Washington, D.C., where politicians of both parties are joining in the fight. Much of the area in the National Seashore has been designated wilderness, and the then secretary of the interior has said the oyster farm doesn't fit in a wilderness area, since it's a commercial operation.
So he ordered it closed in March. The company sued to stop its eviction, and a federal court has allowed operations to continue while it considers the case.
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