Key Penninsula Advisory Commission Votes Against Taylor Shellfish Proposal of 3 New Geoduck Farms

May 18, the Key Peninsula Advisory Commission (KPAC) voted against recommending approval of 3 new geoduck farms proposed by Taylor Shellfish on south Puget Sound's Case Inlet. Taylor Shellfish found strong opposition from citizens opposed to the continued expansion of this form of aquaculuture, along with pointed questions from KPAC members asking at what point too many is too much. In the end, KPAC voted not to recommend approval.

This is not how Puget Sound

should be viewed.

Lots of little problems add up to big ones.
Puget Sound is not made up of discrete fish bowls. Yet, that is exactly how the shellfish industry wants regulatory agencies to view it. Studies looking at individual farms are brought out over and over to support expansion, one farm at a time, ignoring the dynamic and cohesive ecosystem of south Puget Sound. Calls for cumulative impacts are met by shellfish attorneys claiming agencies may only look at each farm individually. It ignores the contiguous and continuous ongoing impacts, cycle after cycle, this growing industry is creating, fracturing the cohesiveness which exists within the intertidal area of south Puget Sound. A cohesiveness the Shoreline Management Act was intended to protect.

This fish bowl is already cracked. Should we be forced to buy another?

Existing farms where these 3 new farms are proposed already have problems. Sediment deposition has buried nets and "flow through mesh tubes" which create an entire set of impacts not considered. As seen in the first picture below, removing nets buried in sediments is not as simple as pulling them out. "Flow through" mesh tubes, intended to replace PVC tubes, are buried and disappearing from sight. When they have to be removed, what will be their impact on the area? Contiguous upland parcels have apparent permit violations. Should new permits be granted while possible violations are being investigated? Some at Pierce County believe they are separate, so don't matter. They do matter.

Digging for geoduck? No, nets

which shifting sediments have buried.

How many tidal cycles to fill this hole?

 Flow through mesh tubes

buried in the sands of time.

Out of site out of mind?

The "Shellfish Initiative" is not the Shoreline Management Act, passed by the legislature and approved by the people. It is nothing more than a strategic marketing plan.

A strategic marketing plan is not a mandate to be forced onto agencies in support of expansion. Yet that is exactly what the shellfish industry presents it as. Unlike the Shoreline Management Act which was passed by the legislature and approved overwhelmingly by Washington's citizens, the "initiative" was dreamed up by the industry and its attorneys as a means to promote its expansion (see Shellfish Politics, Shellfish Initiatives, and the Shoreline Management Act  from 2013 for a history of the National and State initiatives). To believe it should force agencies to approve new projects shows a lack of insight by regulatory agencies.

Get involved. Industry is and they are not giving agencies the entire picture of what they want.

These three farms proposed were known of in 2013 when leases with the property owners were signed. Yet throughout recent permit hearings they were not disclosed. What else is not being told by the industry? Get involved.