End of July, Beginning of August Bring Minus Tides and Warm Weather

Get out and experience Puget Sound

(Tide chart from here: http://www.dairiki.org/tides/monthly.php/oly)

The low minus tides of late July and early August bring one of the last opportunities to experience Puget Sound's low intertidal habitat. It is an area unique to Puget Sound which supports diverse species unique to Puget Sound which is worth protecting and preserving.

Vibriosis Infections From South Puget Sound's Hammersley Inlet, Now Closed to Harvesting

Vibriosis Closes Hammersley Inlet 

Shellfish Growing Area

Washington's Department of Health has notified shellfish growers the Hammersley Inlet growing area is closed due to multiple cases of vibriosis traced to oysters harvested from that area. Warming temperatures and minus tides contributed to the cause of the increase. Being able to trace illnesses to specific areas, in this case, pointed to Hammersley Inlet.

Over the past years, illnesses from oysters harvested from Hammersley Inlet have caused a variety of closures, some related to vibriosis, some related to noro-virus. Vibrio parahaemolyticus bacterium, the cause of vibriosis, occurs naturally in Puget Sound. As water temperatures rise it becomes more abundant. Because oysters are filter feeders, they retain this bacteria within their systems. If left in warm temperatures, the oyster becomes a petri dish which causes this species of bacterium to grow rapidly.

Food safety is important. The Department of Health does not recommend consuming raw oysters from south Puget Sound during the summer and instead suggests boiling, baking or broiling in order to kill any bacteria.

Growth Management Hearings Board Rejects DOE and Pierce County Restrictions on Aquaculture

Taylor  Shellfish/Foss Family Prevail:

GMHB Tells DOE and Pierce County 

it must

"plan for, foster and give preference 

to aquaculture as a preferred use"

[Read decision here]

Presidential Candidate Governor Inslee

and Taylor Shellfish's Bill Dewey

China's elite pay a lot of money.

Taylor Shellfish makes a lot of money.

A few waterfront tideland owners 

make a lot of money.

Is that bad for the marine ecosystem Governor?

Aquaculture as a fosster child.

Washington's Growth Management Hearings Board has told the Department of Ecology and Pierce County the purpose of the Shoreline Management Act is to "plan for, foster and give preference to aquaculture as a preferred use". It is not to prevent the fragmentation of the intertidal area which the SMA describes as part of "the most valuable and fragile of its natural resources." As such it has returned Pierce County's updated Shoreline Master Program to them telling them to remove many  regulations the county and its citizens put in place to control aquaculture.

China doesn't care about Puget Sound habitat.

They care about geoduck grown in PVC pipes.

48,000 per acre

A concern then, a bigger concern now.

Citizens who overwhelmingly passed the SMA because there was concern "throughout the state relating to their utilization, protection, restoration and preservation" now find those concerns are apparently secondary to profits of corporations such as Taylor Shellfish and wealthy shoreline tideland/upland owners such as the Foss family's North Bay Partners who lease their tidelands to them. Taylor Shellfish and the Foss family's North Bay Partners appealed Pierce County's SMP approved by DOE and won.

Before

 After

There are some things which do not need to be fosstered.

What you see above may be good for the geoduck industry, China, a few corporations and a few tideland owners. But who else really believes this is good for Puget Sound's intertidal area? Do properties held by the Foss family really need to be fosstered?

~130 acres, ~5,000' of waterfront.

Taxes? $3,957

Does the Foss family really need to have

geoduck aquaculture fosstered to help pay these taxes?

Washington's intertidal areas are being transformed by a few large corporations who believe the money made and jobs created mitigates the damage done. It is an oligopoly - an industry controlled by a few dominant players. These corporations control the price paid to tideland owners, they control the price paid for shellfish, and through well paid lobbyists and attorneys control agencies responsible for protecting, preserving and restoring Washington's "most valuable and fragile of its natural resources" and instead have convinced them their role is to foster aquaculture. 

The industrial level of activities created by these few corporations are what the SMA was meant to hold back. Not foster.

Get involved

Get involved. If you are not, when your grandchildren ask how Puget Sound's tidelands came to be transformed into forests of PVC, you will only be able to say, "Because I didn't care enough to do anything."