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, April 8, 2015

Aquatic Reserves are Not Reserved for Taylor Shellfish - Get Out, Then Get Involved

Tell Pierce County and Elected Officials
Aquatic Reserves Were Not Reserved
To Be Commercialized by the Shellfish Industry
 
Washington's Aquatic Reserves
Dabob Bay: Withdrawn. Guess why.
 
The door to your tidelands is to the left
Taylor Shellfish owns 11,000 acres of tidelands. Yet, when Pierce County proposed to limit new permits for aquaculture in the Nisqually Reach Aquatic Reserve to the restoration of native Olympia oysters, what did they do? They told Daniel Hull, Executive Director of the Nisqually Reach Nature Center, to tell Pierce County that he would not support the amendment. In a follow-up email he said Taylor Shellfish would withdraw from the aquatic reserves program if the amendment was included in their Shoreline Master Program update. The proposal to create a reserve in Dabob Bay was withdrawn due in large part to pressure from the shellfish industry. Get out, get involved, and tell your elected officials Puget Sound is not for the profits of the few.
 
Pierce County Contacts (click here, or...)
Tell them you support their amendment to limit aquaculture to the restoration of native Olympia oysters in the Nisqually Reach Aquatic Reserve.
dyoung2@co.pierce.wa.us (Derek Young)
mkruger@co.pierce.wa.us (Mike Krueger)
 
Find your Washington elected official
Tell them Aquatic Reserves were not reserved to be commercialized by the shellfish industry.
 
See what the shellfish industry wants for itself
The daylight minus tides of Puget Sound continue with April's beginning to expose the lower intertidal tidelands, unique to Puget Sound. Within this habitat area a diversity of species unique to this environment exist, able to withstand exposure to air and submersion in water. Get out and see what the Shoreline Management Act was intended to protect and in part why aquatic reserves were created. Then get involved in helping to ensure this critical marine habitat is not converted for the profits of the few.

 
Updated 4/8 to clarify sequence of events.

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