Burley Lagoon Kicked Down the Road by the City of Gig Harbor

The City of Gig Harbor has decided inclusion of Burley Lagoon in their Shoreline Master Program (SMP) would be politically problematic. Instead, they will let Pierce County's SMP control its development.

Plans to annex Burley Lagoon allowed for its inclusion within the Urban Growth Area, and with it, the opportunity for true local involvement in shaping Burley Lagoon's future through the SMP update process. It is unlikely Pierce County will be as responsive to citizens' concerns. The "dilution of influence" a small community has within a larger one is well known. More important is the amount of time and money Taylor Shellfish has devoted to crafting Pierce County's updated SMP to favor their transformative shoreline developments, including geoduck farming.

The new Burley Lagoon

[click here for 30mb file of written public comments to the City of Gig Harbor, none in favor of expanding aquaculture activities in Burley Lagoon] Note: On page 231 is a comment by Gary Ritchie, Ph.D., on a presentation by a Dr. VanBlaricom on geoduck farming's impact on the benthic community, in part relied on by Pierce County. He notes: "I contend that Dr. VanBlaricom found no significant harvesting effects because his experimental design simply lacked the statistical power needed to find any effects among all of the natural variation in his study populations. Hence the study was fatally flawed and, consequently, his conclusion was not supported by the study results."