PVC Debris From Corporate Geoduck Farming Continues to Pollute Puget Sound

Just Because You Can't See It

Doesn't Mean It's Not There

PVC Tubes in Case Inlet

June 2012

(click to enlarge)

Corporate Response: "Best Management Practices"

Will Prevent This from Happening

Case Inlet Shoreline Association Response: No It Won't

In 2010 the Case Inlet Shoreline Association wrote the following email to Pierce County with copies to the Department of Ecology, the Department of Natural Resources, and the Department of Fish and Wildlife: 

Subject: PVC tubes near Vaughn Bay, Case Inlet, May 15, 2010.
Date: Sun, 16 May 2010 19:16:34 -0700

Hi Mike, Dave:

I've attached a PDF with pictures of several dozen PVC geoduck tubes that washed up on private beaches near Vaughn Bay yesterday. CISA members were able to pick them up and dispose of them. Some of the residents down there contacted me and complained about it, and wanted me to report it to the state and the county, so here you are. The tubes look fairly new, so I'm guessing that they came from the Stratford site, but North Bay is also a possibility.

Thanks.

Curt Puddicombe
Case Inlet Shoreline Association
Vaughn

The position of the corporations responsible for this pollution is "Best Mangement Practices" are adequate enough to address the problem and regulation is not necessary. Corporate "Best Management Practices" do not work and in fact are creating debris fields of PVC pipes througout Puget Sound. Claims that bi-annual "beach cleanups" address the issue ignore the fact that these "cleanups" do not happen when tides are their lowest, where geoduck farms and PVC pipes exist.

In fact, when the tides are lowest, corporate priorities are planting and harvesting, not picking up their waste. Should an excuse that debris and farms are "only visible a small time during summer daylight hours" be accepted? Their being visible only at low tides begs the question: what remains below the low tide line, out of site, leaching chemicals into Puget Sound's waters?

Corporate profits are driving Governor Gregoire's mandate to "streamline permitting" for shellfish farming, geoduck farms in particular, making a very few corporate owners wealthy at the expense of Puget Sound's future and Washington taxpayers. The Governor being "dressed down" by shellfish farmers (Bill Dewey, December 2011 press conference) should not allow this to continue.