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February is the calendar’s hospital-gown month: short, drab, and miserably chilly. And so one is thankful for diversions of whatever sort. That’s why we were taken with a story recently from San Francisco. Yes, the city that has it all—nude panhandlers, laughable prices, and hipster sanctimony—has made February a little more bearable. That’s because, at least for some of us, there just isn’t much that’s more entertaining than watching the collision of pretentious food prudes with ideologically-mad, eco-smugness.
Here’s the deal: For more than a century, oyster farming’s been part of the landscape of the seashore around Point Reyes, near San Francisco. There’s a deep-water upwelling in the bay, that pushes up from the seabed there nutrients that are like Happy Meals for the spats. Right now there are several million little oysters, suspended in the cold, clear waters of the bay in permeable plastic bags, healthy and happy and growing under the watchful eyes of employees of the Drakes Bay Oyster Company. There are also hundreds and hundreds of thousands of grown up oysters thriving on wires suspended by frames and harvested by the company, delicious, briny and crisp, multilayered in texture and taste.
Now, of course, when San Franciscans aren’t toiling at being obnoxious about their sophisticated, Euro-cool culture and hectoring the rest of us on how we ought to live, they’re immersed in the local food scene. From the sustainable camel milk smoothies at the San Francisco Ferry Building food stalls to the ethically produced organic quinoa soufflés at those charming cafes in the Mission District, the City by the Bay’s denizens adore preening over their groceries. That includes the oysters of the Drakes Bay Oyster Company.
Included, that is. That’s because, as of this month, the Department of the Interior is kicking the oyster company out. For half a century, oyster farming has been compatible with the ocean environment around Point Reyes, mind you. There isn’t anything the company’s doing to degrade the bay. Just the opposite. Oysters are filter feeders. In Chesapeake Bay, on the other side of the country, oyster farming is being encouraged, since the oysters gobble algae and other plants that can erode or threaten the quality of the water. Oysters chug up to 50 gallons of water a day while they feed, working almost exactly the same way though far more efficiently than the kidneys of the Pabst swillers on Castro Street. The company doesn’t add any chemicals, fertilizer, or feed to the water. Their presence is limited, pretty much, to some wooden frames sitting out on 150 acres of a 2,500 acre estuary.
Indeed, according to their website, Drakes Bay has “the same philosophy as the Miwoks when it comes to caring about the sustainability and conservation of this precious area.” That’s right; the same philosophy as that of those chittering little teddy bear guys who saved Luke and Princess Leia and who lived in that beautiful forest on Endor. (Editors Note: Dave’s confusing the Miwoks, a coastal aboriginal tribe from that part of what’s now northern California, with Ewoks. We need to consider easing him out of this job in the near future.)
None of this matters to the Department of the Interior. Or to local activists in Marin County. One of them, the associate director of the National Parks Conservation Association happily reported that closing the Drakes Bay Oyster Company would mean the area “will be safe from privatization schemes.” This particular “scheme” by the way, employed 31 people and added 1.5 million dollars to the economy of the region. That’s 31 workers, many of them possessing unique skills in oyster management, out of jobs.
Of course, those workers aren’t going to be the only ones hurting. At any given time, as we noted above, there are about ten million baby oysters in those permeable bags there in the bay, gamboling about. The ruling insists they be removed. Which will result in their deaths. It’s like clubbing millions of baby seals. Only without getting any coats out of it. The company has until the end of the month to clear out.
So figure this one out: A pristine ecosystem is finally restored, in part by kicking out a private capitalist venture that’s despoilt things, insufferably so. Except said company is greener than the Emerald City’s St. Pat’s parade and totally eco-riffic. And local foodistas, who share all sorts of environmental concerns about sustainability and ecovorism are delighted Point Reyes is getting an ecological makeover courtesy of the Department of the Interior—except they aren’t because since Drakes Bay oysters comprise 40% of the tasty little bivalves consumed locally and losing the company will mean 38,000 lbs. of oysters a week will have to be shipped in from elsewhere to make up the difference, resulting in a carbon footprint Manute Bol couldn’t fill. Further, those oysters won’t be local, San Francisco oysters. They’ll be oysters from all sorts of places that have pet owners instead of pet companions, or that don’t have unionized homeless people.
It’s all pretty confusing, isn’t it? And on a drab and drear February day with not a lot to do, rather unsettling as well.
