Al Bergstein writes on the recent presentation by the Center for Food Safety's attorney Kristina Sinclair. Ms Sinclair discusses the ongoing lawsuit against the Army Corps' permitting of shellfish farms in Puget Sound. 

Mr Bergstein's piece:  https://olyopen.com/2022/11/18/what-you-should-know-about-industrial-raised-shellfish-aquaculture-an-overview/

Ms Sinclair's slide presentation: https://olyopen.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/2022-11-17-Industrial-Shellfish-Slides.pdf

Contact Center for Food Safety here:

Pacific Northwest Office
2009 NE Alberta St, Suite 207
Portland, OR 97211
phone (971) 271-7372

Geoduck Aquaculture: Too Controversial for Jefferson County Marine Resources Committee? What are you "protecting"?

June 28, 1-5PM

Shellfish Aquaculture Educational Forum

Northwest Maritime Center

431 Water St
Port Townsend, WA

Registration required (click here for registration)

JCMRC: We only want to educate you 

on aquaculture which isn't controversial.

(from Coalition to Protect Puget Sound Habitat)

What habitat is it JCMRC "protecting and restoring"?

The "habitat" 40,000 PVC tubes/acre create?

(from Jefferson County Marine Resources Committee site)

Really? What "resources" are you protecting by not putting geoduck aquaculture on the agenda? 

In a move which shines a light on the role which the Jefferson County Marine Resources Committee is apparently now filling - promoting shellfish aquaculture which the industry wants you to hear about - they have decided not to include geoduck aquaculture in an upcoming "educational forum" on aquaculture. Based on a recent post by Al Bergstein, the past Environmental representative on the Committee, the upcoming June 28 meeting will only discuss the warmer topics of aquaculture, not the ongoing hot button of geoduck aquaculture. Ongoing for over a decade now. 

Integrity still matters to some.

(Al Bergstein has resigned from JCMRC)

(Read Al Bergstein's post from his

Olympic Peninsula Environmental News) 

Geoduck aquaculture is too hot for JCMRC to touch. 

As a result of geoduck aquaculture being considered too controversial to be included on the agenda,  Al Bergstein has resigned from his long held position as the Environmental representative. Instead of addressing what is the most controversial form of aquaculture taking place in Puget Sound - the growing of geoduck in intertidal areas for the elite in China - the Jefferson County Marine Resource Committee has instead punted and left it off of the agenda. It's too controversial (still). As a result, Mr Bergstein has resigned from his position. 

The Chinese could care less about Puget Sound's

intertidal area and the habitat provided to native species.

Geoduck growers like the money.

So do nonprofits receiving donations.

Geoduck is hard to swallow. 

While it is unfortunate the JCMRC has lost such a strong voice supporting the critical marine habitats within Puget Sound - those marine habitat areas which the JCMRC claims it is "protecting and restoring" - no one should have to compromise their strongly held beliefs for a committee apparently too timid to face down this industrial level of aquaculture taking place in Puget Sound and deal with the controversy surrounding it. There is a point in life where you can only swallow so much of what industry spoon feeds you before you have to act on your beliefs.

Being involved pays. Very well.

"Don't ask how it's done."

It will be quite a show.

Geoduck growers have created a magic show making agencies believe great benefits to all has been created. Well paid public relations firms, well paid attorneys, and well paid "scientists" (either directly or through grants controlled through the political process) have created a magic show in which the belief that geoducks grown in Puget Sound's intertidal areas is somehow good. It is not . It is transformative, creating a monoculture, and fracturing the critical marine habitat of Puget Sound. Growers want more and will get more unless you make your voice heard. 

Get involved. Make your voice heard. 

Register and attend JCMRC "Shellfish Aquaculture Educational Forum". It will be quite a show.

Zangle Cove and Army Corps Lawsuits: Like a geoduck's growth, the process of law moves slowly.

Why do lawsuits have to be filed to prevent this

from happening to Puget Sound's tidelands?

Zangle Cove: Like a fungus, PVC and netting

begin to spread over the tidelands of Zangle Cove,

adding to that spread throughout Puget Sound.

"Plastic free July" is over. Back to planting 

PVC tubing in Puget Sound's tidelands.

 

Puget Sound's entire food web

is being impacted by this.

1: Zangle Cove/Wild Fish Conservancy/Coalition to Protect Puget Sound Habitat vs Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and Pacific Northwest Aquaculture 

Geoduck are grown for nothing more than satisfying a Chinese superstition with what Washingtonians consider a "junk clam". This tideland owner claims he "wants to feed the world". In fact, the "world" he refers to is little more than the elite in China who are able to afford a $100/pound clam and a few curious tourists. After clearing the tidelands of what is believed to be the oldest living species, up to 168 years old, the operator returned and populated the tidelands with PVC piping and netting, transforming these tidelands forever.

Zangle Cove Lawsuit Papers - Why Hydraulic Permits should be required.

Opening Brief

Protect Zangle Cove, The Coalition to Protect Puget Sound Habitat and the Wild Fish Conservancy have filed a suit against Washington's Department of Fish and Wildlife demanding hydraulic permits be required for these activities. Unlike a dock or bulkhead, these structures being placed within Puget Sound's waters and tidelands avoid any oversight by WDFW, the result of nothing more than a flawed interpretation of a flawed Attorney General opinion. 

As detailed in the petitioners opening brief, filed by Lane Powell's Claire Loebs and Richard Lintermans, WDFW not requiring HPA's for impacts to aquatic habitat from aquaculture's actions was not a legislative action but a misreading of an AG opinion. In that opinion, they accurately state:

"..no mention is made of aquaculture’s other potential harmful effects to wild fish that the Hydraulic Code might prevent, such as the destruction of habitat, removal of food sources, and release of pollutants." (p.12)

Response to Motion for Judgement - "a distraction and a waste of judicial resources"
In addition to the owner's waste of Puget Sound's natural resources in the quest for extracting revenue from Washington's most valuable marine ecosystem - the intertidal area over which waters ebb and flow daily - papers filed by the operator and owner were described this way:

"PNA’s [Pacific Northwest Aquaculture] Motion for Judgment is untimely, will waste the resources of the Court, and in the end, would have little impact on the practical resolution of any matter before the Court. The Court should decline to consider the Motion for Judgment separate from the hearing on the merits"

2: Coalition to Protect Puget Sound Habitat/Center for Food Safety vs US Army Corps - Cumulative impacts matter and they are real. 

The things you discover in discovery.

In a separate but related lawsuit the Coalition to Protect Puget Sound Habitat and the Center for Food Safety have filed suit against the US Army Corps claiming they did not adequately consider cumulative impacts in their approving of permits for aquaculture. During the period of discovery, in which information is presented by various parties to be used in their case, a draft of a cumulative impact analysis by the Corps was found. The Coalition found within that draft the following:

“The proposed action is likely to adversely affect designated critical habitat for several species listed under the ESA including Puget Sound Chinook salmon, Hood Canal summer run chum salmon, and Puget Sound steelhead.” p. 101

“Given the magnitude of the impacts in acreage, the importance of eelgrass to the marine ecosystem, and the scale of the aquaculture impacts relative to other stressors, the impacts are considered significant.” p. 103

“The action does threaten a violation of State requirements under the Shoreline Management Act to achieve no net loss of eelgrass and Federal requirements to protect eelgrass imposed under the ESA for aquaculture activities. The proposed action is not consistent with either of these requirements.” p. 101

 “The conclusion therefore is that significant cumulative effects to surf smelt and sand lance spawning habitat would occur due to the proposed action.” p. 112

“The proposed action is inconsistent with State requirements under the SMA to protect forage fish spawning habitat.” p. 111

 Additional comments in papers filed in response to those filed by the Corps and Taylor Shellfish are found in the PLAINTIFF COALTION’S REPLY IN SUPPORT OF PLAINTIFF’S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT, and PLAINTIFF COALITION’S MEMORANDUM IN OPPOSITION TO DEFENDANTS’ CROSS MOTIONS FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT. In that filing, attorney Karl G Anuta  notes:

"... the Corps and Taylor (hereafter collectively referred to as “Defendants”) present a range of factual arguments that appear to be little more than an attempt to confuse the issues at hand. Defendants also ask the court to ignore the documents and actual facts present in the Record..."

"... the Corps failed to take all the steps required by NEPA, and the CWA. The Corps ignored the analysis of their own staff about the significant impacts that NWP 48 was having and was likely to have in the future."

 "The arguments presented by Defendants to try to justify what the Corps did are both factually and legally invalid. Defendants neither make compelling arguments that support the agency position, nor successfully challenge the arguments brought by CPPSH. The positions taken by counsel for the Defendants are, for the most part, little more than post hoc rationalization efforts that are not consistent with the Decision Documents in the actual Record."

Get involved. Donations are tax deductible.
Puget Sound's marine ecosystem supports a wide diversity of species which are being impacted by industrial aquaculture. It is not benign and impacts are cumulative. You can help with donations to the Coalition to Protect Puget Sound Habitat; Wild Fish Conservancy; and Center for Food Safety.

Industrial Aquaculture: Hear how the critical marine ecosystem is being put at risk by indusrial aquaculture.

CONTACT:         Darlene Schanfald, Vice-Chair

                           Sierra Club North Olympic Group

                             360-681-7565    darlenes@olympus.net

                            

INDUSTRIAL AQUACULTURE

FOOD or FOLLY?   LOSING THE WILD?

Saturday    13 October 2018     3–5 PM

Historic Dungeness Schoolhouse 

2781 Towne Rd, Just off E. Anderson Road

Sequim, WA

 The Sierra Club’s North Olympic Group and the Sierra Club ChapterWater Salmon Committee invites the public to join them for this important forum about how our oceans are being commercialized for the few and the losses that follow.

We are pleased to have the following speakers present their work from years of experience.

  

Kurt Beardslee, Executive Director, Wild Fish Conservancy (WFC)  

The Success of the Our Sound, Our Salmon Campaign: Phasing Out Atlantic Salmon Aquaculture in Puget Sound. 

Kurt Beardslee is the executive director and co-founder of the Wild Fish Conservancy. For over a decade Kurt and his science staff have investigated the substantial risk open-water Atlantic salmon aquaculture places on the Pacific Northwest’s wild salmon.

In spring of 2017, WFC launched the Our Sound,Our Salmon (OSOS) campaign with the goal of phasing out Atlantic salmon net pens from Puget Sound.  The OSOS campaign was fundamental to the passage of Washington’s recent net pen legislation marking the largest legislative removal of Atlantic salmon net pens in the world.

Following the 2017 Cypress Island collapse of Cooke Aquaculture pens that released 260,000 penned Atlantic salmon into the wild, WFC staff collected tissue samples from the escapees for that revealed 100% positive test results for Piscine Reovirus (PRV), a highly contagious and debilitating salmonid disease. Genetic sequencing revealed the virus to be of Icelandic origin marking the first time this foreign strain of the virus was found in Pacific waters. 

In his talk, Kurt will discuss the numerous risks posed by farming Atlantic salmon in open-water net pens as well as potential land-based closed containment solutions for this industry. He will give a brief overview of WFC’s current litigation to hold Cooke Aquaculture accountable under the Clean Water Act for releasing 260,000 non-native Atlantic salmon into Puget Sound.  He will also discuss WFC’s ongoing Endangered Species Act (ESA) suit against the federal government for its failure to adequately protect ESA-listed species from the harm caused by industrial Atlantic salmon net pens.

Laura Hendricks, Founding Director Coalition To Protect Puget Sound Habitat.    Shellfish and Disappearing Beaches                                     

Over the last 11 years, Laura Hendricks’s Coalition has educated the public and regulators on shellfish aquaculture’s harm to WA State’s marine life. Hendricks represented citizens against the shellfish industry at a hearing before the Washington State Shorelines Hearings Board and won the case to protect eelgrass, a WA State Appeals Court precedent-setting case.

Hendricks will give an update about pending legal action by the Coalition to Protect Puget Sound Habitat, Protect Zangle Cove, and Wild Fish Conservancy filed against the WA Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW).  That suit demands an end to WDFW’s exemption of industrial shellfish aquaculture projects from Hydraulic Project Approvals (HPA).  HPAs are state standards designed and required to protect fish and marine habitats. 

“With threatened Southern Resident killer whales and endangered native salmon at extreme risk, our state agencies have failed to implement the environmental protections that are critical to the broad scale ecological recovery of Puget Sound,” says Patrick Townsend, president of Protect Zangle Cove. “The action we are taking today is one important step toward restoring sanity to the recovery process. We must protect the tidelands from further loss of ecological function or we will see the loss of iconic species so important to the people of Washington State.” 

  

Alfredo Quarto, Co-director and Co-founder of Mangrove Action Project (MAP)

Question Your Shrimp, A consumer Awareness Campaign

For twenty-five years, Alfredo Quarto has worked with indigenous cultures around the world helping them restore their mangrove forests and way of life, prior to corporations having destroyed their ecosystems to industrialize the raising of shrimp. He will have a short video about these villages and mangrove trees.

Quarto is a veteran campaigner with over 40 years of experience in organizing and writing on the environment and human rights issues.  Formerly an aerospace engineer, his experiences range over many countries and several environmental organizations, with a long-term focus on ocean issues, forestry, indigenous cultures, and human rights.  Prior to MAP, he was the executive director of the Ancient Forest Chautauqua, a multimedia traveling forum with events in 30 West Coast cities on behalf of old-growth forests and indigenous dwellers.

Anne Mosness, Go Wild Campaign                                                           Current and Pending Efforts of the Federal Government to Raise Penned Fish

Anne Mosness has been tracking the federal NOAA Department of Commerce in its push to raise penned salmon in offshore waters, beyond jurisdictions and regulations of states.  She will speak on the current pending efforts, and losses, of such government efforts.  The public will hear about the recent Center for Food Safety legal win for fishing and public interest groups that challenged the Department of Commerce's rules permitting industrial aquaculture offshore in U.S. federal waters.

Anne Mosness is a fisherwoman that fished Copper River and Bristol Bay, Alaska for decades, a multi-general family profession.  She secured a position with the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy and founded the Go Wild Campaign. She has worked for several other national environmental and food organizations, received a fellowship from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, represented US fisheries at UN forums and Slow Food/Slow Fish conferences in Italy, and other global and national events focused on sustainable foods and fishing, seafood labeling, organic certification, marine ecosystem health. Anne has been a long time contributor to the Puget Consumer Coop’s Sound Consumer magazine.  Her latest article in the PCC magazine isentitled,  "Wild salmon, killerwhales and us" published July, 2018. 

  

Cosponsoring the event are Friends of Miller Peninsula State Park, Olympic Environmental Coalition, Olympic Forest Coalition. and Protect Peninsula’s Future.

The October 13 event is free.  Handouts from the sponsoring and presenting organizations will be available.  Coffee and tea will be served.  

The Extinction of a Species: What happens when people sit back and industry stays focused on regulations.*

What Extinction Looks Like

Get involved.*

Talequah (J35) and her dead calf.

And now, another.

Following the recent death of a newborn calf carried over 1,000 miles for 17 days, another of the endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales has died. The Washington Post writes on the looming extinction of an iconic Northwest species. Despite attempts to save "Scarlet" (J50) the 3 year old female has been declared dead, leaving 74 of the endangered species remaining.

Get involved. PCC markets has written on the problems and steps you can take as individuals while government agencies hold collaborative meetings, largely driven by the interests of corporations who see Puget Sound and the waters and tidelands of the northwest as a palate to generate profits from. At the expense of the very foundation on which the food chain is based.

(Coalition to Protect Puget Sound Habitat)

The Center for Whale Research put it this way: “The message brought by J50, and by J35 and her dead calf a few weeks ago, is that the [southern resident killer whales] are running out of reproductive capacity and extinction of this population is looming, while the humans convene task forces and conference calls that result in nothing, or worse than nothing, diverting attention and resources from solving the underlying ecological problems that will ultimately make this once-productive region unlivable for all.”

*In addition to steps in the PCC article, Pierce County will hold a meeting on its updated Shoreline Master Program on Monday, September 17th.. The Department of Ecology has told the County there are a number of regulations which must be dropped or added, many at the demands from attorneys from the shellfish industry. When people sit back, they will get what an industry and agencies feel is best for them. Get involved. Industry is.

What Geoduck Tariffs Mean to Puget Sound: Good Bye Honey, Things have Changed

Packin' Up, Movin' Out

Goodbye Honey Bucket

Will this really be missed?

(and did this mess get to where it was going?)

What could possibly go wrong?

According to recent press releases, geoduck farmers are "freaking out" over the recent 25% tariff imposed on geoduck grown in Puget Sound. The Chinese, in one action, may have done more to preserve and possibly restore Puget Sound's intertidal area than a decade of efforts from people concerned over the transformation brought on by PVC at planting and liquification of sediments at harvesting. While unknown whether it will last, what is becoming clear is some companies seem to be standing on thin legs and are at risk of failure.

Money for Nothin'

Kicks for Free

At the Expense of Puget Sound's 

Intertidal Habitat

(and your leased tidelands)

"You'll get rich. And, if not, well, they're your tidelands, not mine."

A recent opinion piece in the Seattle Time by Jim Gibbons, founder of Seattle Shellfish, stated prices have dropped 40% due to the tariff imposed. Worried about whether his business will be able to survive, he wrote he will be curtailing "growth" and cutting back on planting. Whether the cutting back and curtailments will occur on leased tidelands, whose owners were told of great wealth to come for doing nothing from these leases, or on tidelands privately held by Seattle Shellfish, was not made clear. What was made clear is that the founder of Seattle Shellfish is concerned about a breach in the moat which had surrounded this industry's model.

In the end,

aren't we all brothers?

Panopea japonica, Panopea generosa

"both nuclear genes revealed low genetic divergence 

between P. generosa and P. japonica"

North Korea's new secret weapon threatening the northwest: Panopea japonica?

In the piece penned by Mr Gibbons, he noted Puget Sound is not the only place the Chinese are able to source geoduck. He notes Mexico, Canada and North Korea as alternatives (not mentioned was New Zealand). In a 2015 study on genetic differences between "geoduck" from different geographic areas, the point was made that there was a "low genetic divergence" between geoduck from the northwest and Asia. So why would someone pay exorbitant prices for something grown in the US when close to the same thing, if not the same thing, is able to be grown and harvested in Asian waters? They won't. And for that reason, Mr. Gibbons, Bill Dewey with Taylor Shellfish, and a myriad of small operators,  rightly worry that in fact, a moat has been breached and things have changed.

Conservation Groups File Papers Seeking WDFW Oversight of Commercial Aquaculture in Washington State

(See press release below)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE--Case Number: 18-2-01972-34.

April 12, 2018

 

CONTACT:   Patrick Townsend (360) 359-4406 

                     Laura Hendricks  (253) 509-4987

                     Kurt Beardslee    (425) 788-0125 

CONSERVATION GROUPS SUE STATE TO DEMAND IT PROTECT COASTAL SHORELINES BY ENDING PERMITTING EXEMPTION FOR INDUSTRIAL SHELLFISH AQUACULTURE

Protect Zangle Cove, the Coalition to Protect Puget Sound Habitat and Wild Fish Conservancy filed suit today against the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (“WDFW”), demanding an end to the improper exemption of industrial shellfish aquaculture projects from state standards designed to protect fish and marine habitats. 

Most construction projects in or near Washington waters must receive an Hydraulic Project Approval (“HPA”), which requires that they have safeguards in place to protect fish and their habitat. WDFW has exempted commercial aquaculture from this statutory requirement for many years, meaning aquaculture projects go forward without these crucial environmental safeguards. 

The lawsuit filed in Thurston County Superior Court contends this exemption has no legal basis and asks the court to direct WDFW to apply the HPA law consistently to shellfish aquaculture projects. The suit also asks the court to halt development of a geoduck farm planned for Zangle Cove, a near pristine estuary in South Puget Sound, until it receives an HPA permit.

“With threatened Southern Resident killer whales and endangered native salmon at extreme risk, our state agencies have failed to implement the environmental protections that are critical to the broad scale ecological recovery of Puget Sound,” says Patrick Townsend, president of Protect Zangle Cove. “The action we are taking today is one important step toward restoring sanity to the recovery process. We must protect the tidelands from further loss of ecological function or we will see the loss of iconic species so important to the people of Washington State.” 

Laura Hendricks, director of the Coalition To Protect Puget Sound Habitat, emphasizes that the lawsuit only asks the state to apply the law consistently.

“There is a double standard that exempts commercial shellfish aquaculture from the state HPA permitting system, even though these operations pose a severe threat to our fragile coastal habitats,” Hendricks says. “A private citizen installing a small dock needs to get an HPA permit, but a commercial shellfish facility would not need an HPA permit before constructing a facility that disrupts miles of pristine shoreline, destroys natural vegetation and aquatic life, and inserts tons of harmful plastic tubing, netting, and rebar into the tidelands.” 

Commercial shellfish aquaculture is in the midst of dramatic expansion in Washington. These factory-farm like facilities already take up as many as 50,000 shoreline acres, or as much as one-quarter of all Washington tidelands. Significant expansion is planned in the immediate future,  focusing largely on geoducks raised to sell in the Asian luxury market.

A single-acre geoduck operation usually includes around 44,000 PVC tubes, four- or six-inches in diameter, and approximately ten inches long. This amounts to approximately seven miles of PVC tubing per acre, weighing between 11 and 23 tons. Plastic nets are typically installed over the entire geoduck bed to keep out native wildlife that would normally feed and shelter there.

Kurt Beardslee, co-founder and Executive Director of the Wild Fish Conservancy, says: “There’s no way around it, it’s a scientific fact: the industrial shellfish aquaculture industry routinely damages vast amounts of habitat critical to federally protected species, including wild salmon and steelhead, with little or no agency oversight.”

Protect Zangle Cove, the Coalition to Protect Puget Sound Habitat and Wild Fish Conservancy are represented in the litigation by the law firm of Lane Powell P.C.

                                                           ### 

To view the complaint filed today, visit: 

http://users.neo.registeredsite.com/3/7/5/12218573/assets/Petition_for_Judicial_Review.pdf 

For more information about the impact of commercial shellfish aquaculture, visit:

www.protectzanglecove.org, www.coalitiontoprotectpugetsoundhabitat.org, and http://www.wildfishconservancy.org/.

About Zangle Cove

Protect Zangle Cove is a nonprofit organization consisting of citizens who reside on the shores of South Puget Sound. Our mission is to protect the tideland of Zangle Cove from industrial geoduck aquaculture, preserve the critical habitat of Puget Sound tidelands, support the protection and restoration of eelgrass on Puget Sound tidelands, educate citizens about nearshore habitat, inform government officials about the problems from industrial shellfish aquaculture, and encourage rulemaking to protect Puget Sound shorelines for the enjoyment of citizens and for native species that make their homes here. 

About Coalitoin To Protect Puget Sound Habitat 

The Coalition is an alliance of citizens, environmentalists, scientists and recreational users concerned about industrial aquaculture and its impacts on plants, animals, and ecological functions. Our mission is to voice citizen concerns about industrial aquaculture and its adverse impact on the health and quality of Puget Sound and coastal waters, to effect changes in policies and regulations, and to encourage enforcement to protect shoreline habitat. 

About Wild Fish Conservancy

The Conservancy is a membership-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation and recovery of the Northwest’s native fish species and the ecosystems upon which those species depend. 

Native Salmon Matter More: It's what the Elwah River is being restored for.

Native salmon matter more.

.
Encourage Governor Inslee to sign into law EHB2957, phasing out nonnative Atlantic salmon net pen operations. Contrary to old NOAA science, these nonnatives are a risk, traveling throughout the Salish Sea basin, not staying near the pens waiting to be fed as NOAA scientists claimed they would be. 
Email: https://www.governor.wa.gov/…/con…/send-gov-inslee-e-message
Phone: 360-902-4111

The new cycle of life begins.

In pictures released by the Coastal Watershed Institute are seen why >$300 million was spent to remove dams and restore habitat on the Elwah River: For native species begin a new life cycle.

This is what the northwest's heritage

and culture is based on. They are why

West Coast values are important.

Restoration was not for nonnative Atlantic salmon, mistakenly described by NOAA "scientists" as being like "cows on the Serengeti" which would not travel beyond their pen areas. Those "cows" have traveled over 200 miles to the Skagit; Puyallup; Elwah; and Skykomish Rivers, and into Canada. That is reality, not a paper on someone's desk.

NOAA researcher Michael Rust told the Seattle Times this release of around 5,000 [now at ~250,000] salmon should not harm the environment: “These things are kind of couch potatoes. They are domesticated. Imagine a dairy cow getting lost out in the Serengeti." Forbes, August 24, 2017

One of the many one ton bags of pellets

dumped into Puget Sound to feed Atlantic salmon.

Some will be eaten, a portion "pooped" by salmon,

some will simply drift off.

These net pen operations are not shellfish. They do not filter the water. They instead use the public waters to throw tons of pellets into the water, some simply drifting in the ecosystem, some coming out of the salmon to also drift in the ecosystem. They are additive, with one pen estimated at one hearing to be the equivalent of the septic discharge of a city of 60,000 people.

Welcome to 2018. It's time for a change.

And it's not because Cooke Aquaculture is Canadian.

This is 2018, not 1999, when the last significant escape of nonnative salmon occurred. Native salmon and Southern Resident Orcas are at greater risk now than they ever have been, far more than in 1999, almost 2 decades ago. It is why it is now time to phase out net pen operations, additive to the risks at many levels. It has nothing to do with whether the current operator is Canadian or not. It is because things change over 20 years. That is reality, not an alternative fact and why Washington residents want nonnative Atlantic salmon removed.

Get involved and encourage Governor Inslee to sign into law EHB2957. It is on his desk. Cooke Aquaculture is spending close to $100,000 - likely much more - to convince him otherwise.
Email: https://www.governor.wa.gov/…/con…/send-gov-inslee-e-message
Phone: 360-902-4111

Pesticides in Willapa Bay: It's not about bees. It's about Willapa Bay's aquatic ecosystem and native marine invertebrates, the very foundation of the food chain.

Comments due November 1

Reminder: Comments on the proposal to apply the neurotoxic pesticide Imidacloprid to shellfish beds in Willapa Bay are due by November 1. 

You may submit comments here: http://ws.ecology.commentinput.com/?id=aefUM

(Alternatively, you may say you support the comment letter from the Coastal Watershed Institute found here: https://commentinput.com/attachments/projectID_1001/10063/merged//12829.pdf)

(Or, you may say you support the comment letter from Northwest Center for Alternatives to Pesticides, found on The Coastodian's site, here: https://coastodian.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/comment-letter-oyster-imidacloprid-proposal-SEIS-2017_updated-1.pdf)

Willapa Bay is not a template for shellfish growers to profit from. It's time for them to step back.

Anthropogenic Extinction

of a Native Oyster

(From The History and Decline 

of Ostrea Lurida in Willapa Bay, Washington)

Native oyster, native habitat, gone.

In the mid-1800's one of the great anthropogenic acts of extinction began in Willapa Bay. An estimated 27% of Willapa Bay was originally covered with native Olympia oyster. By 1920 that population, whose beds were estimated to have been as dense as 116 oysters per square meter, were all but gone, a direct result of overharvesting. After the shellfish industry first stripped the more easily harvested intertidal and low subtidal areas, they then convinced politicians in 1899 they should be allowed to dredge the remaining subtidal population. Shortly after that point, the native population of Olympia oyster, likely genetically distinct to Willapa Bay, were all but gone. Thanks to little more than the goal of short sighted profits by the shellfish industry.

Bring in the nonnatives, spray the invasives (as defined by the shellfish industry)

Left with nothing more than empty tidelands the shellfish growers, instead of restoring the native Olympia oyster, attempted to introduce the nonnative Eastern oyster. Shipped by rail and packed in Spartina, it was a failure after mass die-offs. What didn't die-off was Spartina. Considered a beneficial plant on the east coast because of its ability to stabilize soils in the nearshore environment and habitat it provided, shellfish growers considered it an invasive species. Through political lobbying they were able to get approved one of the largest herbicidal spraying operations in a marine environment. While successful in minimizing Spartina, its sediment retention properties were lost, resulting in dispersal of sediments previously held in place throughout Willapa Bay.

If at first you don't succeed - try again. And strip ownership of tidelands from those who made it succeed.

After the failure of the Eastern oyster, Willapa Bay shellfish growers turned to the nonnative Japanese Pacific oyster.  Growers from Japan had been successfully importing and growing the Pacific oyster privately owned tidelands since 1905. Until "passage by a State Legislature of a law (1922) restricting the ownership of lands by aliens, [when] the Japanese Company was forced out of business" (from "The Immigrant Oyster", a history of how the nonnative Pacific oyster came to be introduced and cultured in Washington's waters). At that point, after the failure of the Eastern oyster, the nonnative Pacific oyster was what was grown. 

Bring in the nonnatives, spray the invasives. Part 2.

Along with the nonnative Pacific oyster imported from Japan, also came the nonnative Japanese eelgrass. As with Spartina, in Japan this species of eelgrass is considered beneficial in the habitat and food provided to aquatic and avian species. But, as with Spartina, shellfish growers here considered it to be a "noxious weed." Shellfish growers successfully convinced the Noxious Weed Board to classify Japanese eelgrass as a "noxious weed" which in turn led to approval spraying Imazamox, an herbicide, into Willapa Bay in order to more easily grow nonnative Manila clams and nonnative Pacific oysters.

Kill off the natives with pesticides so nonnatives can grow.

Now, shellfish growers believe it is time to remove a native species, the burrowing shrimp. Growers claim the burrowing shrimp is spreading throughout the bay, making their tidelands too soft to grow nonnative shellfish on. And with the removal of the burrowing shrimp, any other aquatic invertebrate in the area, making up the very base of the food chain in Willapa Bay. The shellfish growers' response? It helps the population to kill them off. (Dick Sheldon, October 10, before the Department of Ecology) 

Willapa Bay needs a new chef. It's not a "chemical soup" and not a profit template.

It's time for shellfish growers to be told to step aside. Their short sighted actions have done little more than transform what had been a bay whose tidelands were populated with native Olympia oysters in densities unimaginable today. Their short sighted actions have introduced multiple nonnative species into a thriving ecosystem which has done nothing more than create what Washington's attorney general described as "the chemical soup that was the bay." A chemical soup created by chefs who call themselves shellfish growers. 

Get involved. Industrial aquaculture is transforming Washington's marine ecosystems. Aquaculture can be done, within reason. But just because it is "aquaculture" should not mean it can do what it wants, where it wants, however it wants.

Comments due November 1. 

Net Pen Aquaculture: It sounded so good in 2013. It's a disaster in 2017.

The 251 mile journey

of a non-native Atlantic salmon.

One of many healthy "couch potatoes"

looking for a river, a mate, and a place to call home.

How non-native Atlantic salmon were allowed to spread over 251 miles in the Salish Sea: A journey which began in 2013. (See links to DOE's " Marine Net Pen Science Forum" at the end, and an image of how far the "couch potatoes" have spread in the Salish Sea above and on WDFW's "catch map".) 

(For WDFW "catch map", see here: http://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/salmon/atlantic_catch_map.php)

2013 - NOAA/DOE: We're the government. Trust us. Growing non-native Atlantic salmon in Puget Sound is safe and good for you.

Welcome to the future of farming

non-native Atlantic salmon.

The future is here and it's not good.
In January of 2013, the Department of Ecology's Cedar Bouta opened the "Marine Net Pens Science Forum" telling everyone "we're filming for the future." The future is here and the video of that seminar from 2013 can be looked at to see how NOAA and the Department of Ecology crafted a narrative to promote growing the non-native Atlantic salmon as being safe and profitable. That narrative, crafted to assure everyone this was a safe, sustainable, and profitable proposition, has now resulted in the escape of 160,000, 10 pound, mature, non-native Atlantic salmon, swimming over 251 miles away from the collapsed net pen, beginning to migrate upstream to native salmon habitat. A pen which had begun collapsing in July, one month before the final failure.

NOAA's Laura Hoberecht and Mike Rust:

It's going to be a great future.

Caught in the past with an ecological disaster in the present growing larger as days go by.
Still with us from 2013 are NOAA's Mike Rust who assured us after the collapse of the pen that the 160,000 escaped salmon were nothing more than "couch potatoes" who would not go anywhere (See how far these couch potatoes have traveled on WDFW's catch map). Also still with us from NOAA is Laura Horberecht, recently quoted in The New Yorker as saying "...farming species outside their natal territory is rare - Atlantic salmon being the exception." [Note: Apparently Ms. Hoberecht is not aware of the non-native and invasive Pacific oyster being farmed by shellfish growers in Puget Sound.] (See The New Yorker article here: https://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/washington-states-great-salmon-spill-and-the-environmental-perils-of-fish-farming)

Trust us. You want to include net pen farming in your Shoreline Master Programs. It's good for the economy.
Also still with us is the belief by the Department of Ecology, stressed by Mike Cook (when not flirting with Laura Hoberecht) that farming non-native salmon is a water dependent right he and industry should have under the Shoreline Management Act and that local agencies simply aren't capable of understanding the science industry creates. Excluding is not allowed by DOE who believes they know best.

Weekend movies to watch: DOE's 2013 "Science Forum" on growing non-native Atlantic Salmon and why there's nothing to worry about.

Part 1: NIMBY's and NGO's with too much time on their hands make business hard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1CWfjh86h0
DOE's Cedar Bouta introducing Laura Hoberecht who discusses NOAA's promotion of aquaculture. She is followed at 12:26 by the flirtatious Mr. Cook who discusses Icicle's (now Cooke Aquaculture) operations who, at 28:14 discusses industry's opinion on those opposed to farming non-native Atlantic salmon. At 32:42 Bruce Stewart with the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission discusses culturing native salmon.

Part 2: NOAA on the best food to feed "couch potatoes" (maybe they needed more fat?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLnmNOtNRbg&t=47s
Jill Noland begins talking about pathogens associated with farmed salmon, focused on minimizing the risk to wild salmon. At 19:50 Mike Rust discusses food used in the farming of salmon with comparisons to chickens and cows. At 39:20 Walt Dickhoff with NOAA (email: walton.w.dickhoff@noaa.gov) speaks to the risks from escapees.

Part 3: Permitting is so hard, but so complete, there is nothing to worry about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkl28cuVv0k
Part 3 begins with Ms. Hoberecht talking about permitting, using a permitting chart for shellfish farms, presented many times by the shellfish industry when complaining about regulatory oversight. At 3:55 Lori LeVander with DOE discusses the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits issued by DOE. At 17:27 John Kerwin with WDFW speaks to permitting and fish health, including (at 27:08) the requirement that non-native Atlantic salmon eggs be marked such that a mature salmon can be traced back to the facility. [Note: It is not known whether this still occurs.] Mr. Kerwin also stresses the risks from large, mature fish escaping, such what just occurred (at 29:27). At 31:20, Jack Rensel (often used as an expert witness by the aquaculture industry in support of their permits) speaks of scientific "modelling" and assumptions to support industrial scale operations and siting.

Part 4: Forum Discussion, Question 1 - Why aren't we growing native salmon instead of non-native Atlantic salmon? Answer: You make more money growing non-native Atlantic salmon, leaving more profits to help influence policy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26gYoKPKI-E&list=PL8BmI4b96dKZ5rdChrLsl-e5fxeGMHsLA&index=4
Part 4 is an open forum with the first question being why aren't native salmon being farmed, responded to by Mr. Cook on the economic benefits of farming Atlantic salmon.

Get involved. As seen in how well NOAA and DOE crafted their 2013 "scientific forum" to support the growing of non-native Atlantic salmon in Puget Sound, industry has been. Despite assurances from government agencies about there being no risk, an ecological disaster is unfolding. Alaska bans net pen farms. California prohibits the culturing of salmon in its Pacific waters. Oregon has no net pen operations.

Tell your elected officials it is time to remove these industrial scale operations from Washington's waters.

Contact information for state and national elected officials may be found here:
http://app.leg.wa.gov/DistrictFinder/
Tell Governor Inslee if he really cares about Puget Sound, now is the time to stand up and tell DOE to allow counties to ban these operations.
http://www.governor.wa.gov/contact/contact/send-gov-inslee-e-message
Help support those who are focused on protecting the Salish Sea's diversity and health from these operations:
Our Sound, Our Salmon
https://www.oursound-oursalmon.org/#home
Wildfish Conservancy
http://wildfishconservancy.org/
Center for Food Safety:
https://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/