Willapa Bay's Ecosystem Does not Need to Adapt for Shellfish Growers to Profit

Willapa Bay and Imidacloprid:

Kim Patten, WSU, on DOE's denial of the permit to apply pesticides in Willapa Bay - If you don't like Ecology's denial of a permit, legislate them out of the decision making and put the Department of Agriculture in charge. "They have different restrictions and laws..."

(Read Chinook Observer quoting Kim Patten here:

http://www.chinookobserver.com/co/columns/20180523/coast-chronicles-science-rules-at-the-marine-resource-council-conference)

It's time for Kim Patten to let go.

Politics does not solve everything.

In an article in the May 23rd Chinook Observer, Washington State University's Kim Patten describes his idea of how to deal with DOE's denial of the permit to apply the pesticide Imidacloprid into Willapa Bay:

"If the oyster growers decide to sue the Department of Ecology, it would then go in front of the Pollution Control Board for a hearing. If they find in favor of Ecology, then it’s over as far as any chemical treatment. If they find against, it would go back to Ecology — and they would maybe look at the points the Hearing Board cited and try to address those concerns. Whether they could do that and still not issue the permit, we don’t know. Or there could be a law passed by the Legislature to move the permitting process from Ecology perhaps to the Washington Department of Agriculture. Then Ag would have to say, ‘Now it’s ours, here’s what we’re going to do.’ And they’d begin some kind of study [with Kim Patten in charge?]. They have different restriction and laws to look at than Ecology has so the outcome could change."

It's time for new glasses.

There is a better way.

Despite Taylor Shellfish describing in the article how they address the problem of burrowing shrimp through a different growing technique, a few growers in Willapa Bay are myopic in their singular focus on the use of pesticides being the only way to deal with a native species they do not like. Taylor points out the survival rate of oysters in their technique is higher and, not mentioned, is the shape of oysters using their technique is apparently what the half shell market prefers (cupped and rounded). It is a better way.

It's time to let go.

It's time for growers and Kim Patten to realize the use of pesticides in Willapa Bay is not going to happen. It is the growers and Kim Patten who have to adapt to that reality. Willapa Bay's ecosystem need no longer adapt to them.