| Date: | June 20, 2016 |
| Time: | 1:30 PM |
| Location: | 930 Tacoma Avenue South, Room 1045 Tacoma, WA 98402 |
On June 20th, Dave Risvold , Pierce County's Shoreline Planning Supervisor (email address drisvold@co.pierce.wa.us), will present information to the Community Development Committee (chaired by Derek Young, email: dyoung2@co.pierce.wa.us) related to the Shoreline Master Program (SMP) Update. The agenda and meeting material, when prepared, may be found on Pierce County's Community Development web page. (Note: At the time of this posting that information was not yet available.) The presentation will be archived and available later on PierceCountyTV.org. (Note: It is possible the presentation may be live.)
Day or night - the more the better.
Or is it?
See how and why people became involved.
The Department of Ecology has summarized comments on Pierce County's proposed SMP Update, received between March 15 and April 29, returning them to Pierce County for their response. Browsing the document, it is clear the shellfish industry continues its political press against regulatory oversight. It is also clear there is a large concern from citizens over this industry's lack in understanding they profit from a healthy Puget Sound, but that does not mean they should profit any way they wish to, just because Puget Sound is healthy.
What's the problem? Isn't advocating
for clean waters enough?
(June, 2016)
No, it's not.
Shellfish politics at its best - we don't like being regulated.
Contained within the summary of comments are concerns from Taylor Shellfish, their attorney Plauche and Carr, and Steve and Vicki Wilson (owners of Arcadia Point Seafood) that the proposed update does not promote development of aquaculture ("foster") as they would like.
(Note: Scan the summary for comments from number 12 to see law firm Plauche and Carr's concerns, and numbers 13, 21, 23, 110, 115 116, 121 and 122 for those submitted by Taylor Shellfish or in the name of Taylor Shellfish.)
Additional comments from the shellfish industry promote their belief that being "advocates for clean water" should allow placement of structures and conversion of tidelands to monolithic populations of shellfish, minimizing the reality of the point source of plastic pollution these operations have developed into. Turning their back to their promotion of pesticide and herbicide application into those same "clean" waters.
Industry also comments that regulatory oversight intended to protect the marine ecosystem they are transforming, which the Shoreline Management Act is meant to protect, is a "burden" to their plans for developments in the tidelands. Included are suggestions to minimize buffer widths intended to protect native eelgrass, if an activity is related to aquaculture, but feeling larger buffers required for "all other activities" is fine. All the while believing their placement then removal at harvest of structures is somehow as beneficial as eelgrass.
The politics of Puget Sound and the Shoreline Management Act.
The Shoreline Management Act was passed by the legislature and approved by voters not to promote shellfish farming but to protect the shorelines of Puget Sound for everyone. Its intertidal area was never intended to become an area into which plastic structures could be placed anywhere at anytime. Yet this is how shellfish politics promotes it. Politics created the Shoreline Management Act. It will be politics which protects it or dismantles it. Get involved like those who commented have and make a difference.
No comments:
Post a Comment