The Green Boot: Feds crush small business "for the environment"

In case you were worried about small businesses being able to continue their villainous plots of employing local workers, never fear: the Federal Government once again has the solution: Just shut them down.

U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told a popular oyster farm at Drakes Bay on Thursday to pack up and leave, effectively ending more than a century of shellfish harvesting on the picturesque inlet where Europeans first set foot in California.

Naturally, the small business being crushed under the Fed's bootheel won't affect anything. I mean, it only employed 30 measly people. Not like they produced 40% of the oysters harvested in California or anything.

The government is able to do this thanks to the fact that the business is operated out of land owned by the National Park Service. The reason that the land is owned by the Federal Government is that it was sold to them in the 1970s to protect the local businesses from developers, with the understanding that they would have their 40 year leases renewed in perpetuity.

Not pictured: The irony of selling your land to the Feds to protect your business, only to have them confiscate it at the first opportunity.

Secretary Salazar wishes to keep the land of this are in its pristine, unemployment producing state. Obviously, increasing poverty in any area is the fastest way to improve its environment. "Conservationists" in the area are, of course, overjoyed.

"A heartfelt salute to Secretary Salazar for his wisdom and statesmanship in choosing long-term public good over short-term private interests," said Sylvia Earle, a local environmentalist and the former chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "Protecting Drakes Estero, America's only West Coast marine wilderness park, will restore health and hope for the ocean and for the interests of all of the people of this country."

Sylvia was oddly silent on the fact that the way the decision was handed down will require Lunny to ruthlessly slaughter the 5-10 million juvenile oysters growing to adulthood.

Before we judge the government too harshly, though, let's take a step back. At the end of the day, it's very important to note that the government was able to look past the money side of this: all the lost taxes, revenues, jobs, and really cut to the heart of the matter. They objectively looked at the science of the matter at hand, carefully examined the data, then twisted the data any damned way they pleased to fit their preconceived notions.

...a panel of scientists concluded that National Park Service officials made errors, selectively presented information and misrepresented facts in a series of reports about his Drakes Bay shellfish operation.

The findings mark the second time in a year that the Park Service has been put under a spotlight for essentially fudging data in its attempts to show that the Drakes Bay Oyster Co. harmed the environment.

While the report did not specifically accuse anyone of misconduct, it raised serious questions about governmental misuse of scientific data.

The Park Service said the number of harbor seals declined from 250 to 50 in the area Lunny developed. Park Service officials also claimed the oyster farm could hasten the spread of destructive nonnative species that hitchhike on the oyster shells. The voluminous waste produced by oysters, they said, increased sedimentation in the estuary.

Goodman used Park Service records to refute much of the disputed data, including evidence that the amount of eelgrass in the bay doubled between 1991 and 2001, and that the number of harbor seal pups increased overall in the bay while oyster harvesting was under way.

The Federal Government: Deliberately publishing falsehoods in order to crush small businesses and ensure that the environment is pristine for our future, poverty stricken generations.