Our mission is to protect the habitat of Puget Sound tidelands from the underregulated expansion of new and intensive shellfish aquaculture methods. These methods were never anticipated when the Shoreline Management Act was passed. They are transforming the natural tideland ecosystems in Puget Sound and are resulting in a fractured shoreline habitat. In South Puget Sound much of this has been done with few if any meaningful shoreline permits and with limited public input. It is exactly what the Shoreline Management Act was intended to prevent.

Get involved and contact your elected officials to let them you do not support aquaculture's industrial transformation of Puget Sound's tidelands.

Governor Inslee:

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Burley Lagoon: Taylor Shellfish Proposes 25+ Acre Geoduck Farm

[Note: SEPA environmental decision is separate.]
 
Comments Due July 3, 4:30 P.M.
Must include permit number SD/CP15-14 and Applicant, Taylor Shellfish – Western Oyster
Properties LLC aka Burley Lagoon
Attn: Ty Booth, Senior Planner
tbooth@co.pierce.wa.us 253-798-3727
 
or in writing to:
Planning and Land Services,
Attn: Current Planning, Ste. 175,
2401 South 35th Street
Tacoma, WA 98409.
 
25+ Acre Conversion of Burley Lagoon

Pierce County has notified the public that Taylor Shellfish has submitted an application to create a 25+ acre geoduck farm in Burley Lagoon. As described:
Proposed Action: The Applicant is proposing to convert existing shellfish beds from the cultivation (planting, growing, and harvesting) of Pacific oysters, Manila clams, and scatter-planted Geoduck clams to Geoduck clams planted in tubes.
Detail of action area
 
Do starfish celebrate like the Mariners?
Taylor Shellfish states it is only transforming an area from one type of shellfish cultivation to another and little harm will result. Whether the native habitat and species of Burley Lagoon agree will remain to be seen. It's doubtful the starfish seen below agree.
 
Did we win something?
From Burley Lagoon
 
They typically do not "pig pile" in  celebration like the Mariners did in 1995 after beating the Yankees in the 11th inning of the ALDS . Scientists contacted generally agree these were intentionally moved and piled together. More worrisome to some, by concentrating a population such as this the current "starfish wasting" disease which is impacting starfish in Puget Sound will likely spread, further devastating a native species. However, it is less worrisome to the shellfish industry who see them as little more than a "pest." (See industry's complete list of "pests" in their "Pests of Bivalve Aquaculture" document.)


1995 Game 5 ALDS, 11th Inning
Go home Yankees
Feels better than the starfish.

Things linger in low flush toilets
Pierce County once noted that Burley Lagoon is a low flushing lagoon. The result is sediments which are suspended are not simply carried away by the tide but instead linger within the body of water.  Whether Pierce County will permit one of the largest proposed geoduck farm in an enclosed body of water will remain to be seen.

Image created from dive harvesting
pictures of Spencer Cove, Harstine Island.
Posted by Protect Our Shoreline at 9:13 PM
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