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:

Monday, January 16, 2017

Reminder: January 17 - Hearing on Zangle Cove Geoduck Operation in Zangle Cove

Zangle Cove Hearing Continued to Tuesday, January 17, 2017 at 10 a.m.
Thurston County Courthouse 
Building One, Room 152

Who is that "recreating" over my geoduck farm
and why are they "recreating" there?
Diane Cooper of Taylor Shellfish:
Clear evidence you can "recreate" over a geoduck farm.
(Exhibit submitted by shellfish attorneys in hearing.)

Better bring lunch and dinner to eat. 
The appeal of Thurston County's "Mitigated Determinatin of Non-significance" (MDNS) for a geoduck operation in the ecologically sensitive Zangle Cove, whose tidelands were not sold as being suitable for aquaculture, and the associated Shoreline Substantial Development Permit, continues January 17. Based on an email from the Hearing Examiner, it may be a marathon, stretching into the night, noting parties should "... arrange to be available into the evening as late as necessary." Bring food for the body.

Mental food for thought from a recently published court decision the shellfish industry attempted to prevent being published.
Appeals Court of Washington:
The SHB [Shorelines Hearings Board] concluded the permit did not appropriately balance statewide interests and was inconsistent with RCW 90.58.020

The SMA [Shoreline Management Act] is liberally construed "to give full effect to the objectives and purposes for which it was enacted." RCW 90.58.900. The essential purpose of the SMA is to protect the shorelines of the state because they are "among the most valuable and fragile of its natural resources." RCW90.58.020. Permitted shoreline uses must be designed and conducted in a manner that minimizes damage to the ecology, damage to the environment, and interference with the public's use of Washington's water. RCW 90.58.020.

Shorelines Hearings Board: There is more to the Shoreline Management Act than aquaculture.
" particular consideration must be given to balancing the interests of aquaculture as one statewide interest, with other statewide interests like the shoreline's ecological values and the public's recreational use"

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