(From Protect the Peninsula)

What You Should Know About

Insudstrial Raised Shellfish

Join Protect the Peninsula’s Future for its 49th Year Celebration (Virtual)

Thursday, November 17, 7:00 PM      

 RSVP to PPF@olympus.net to receive the Zoom connection*

Our featured speaker this year is Kristina Sinclair,

Associate Attorney at the Center for Food Safety

 

*Space is limited to 100.

Kristian Sinclair, Associate Attorney

Center for Food Safety

Kristina Sinclair is an Associate Attorney at the Center for Food Safety (CFS), where she focuses on environmental cases challenging industrial agriculture, including commercial shellfish.

Kristina earned her J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. While in law school, Kristina was an Articles Editor for the California Law Review. She also participated in the Environmental Law Clinic, served on the steering committee for Students for Economic and Environmental Justice, and worked as a teaching assistant for Appellate Advocacy. Upon graduation, she received recognition for her pro bono work and a Certificate of Specialization in Environmental Law.

Since joining CFS, Kristina has been working on a lawsuit challenging highly disruptive industrial shellfish operations in Washington. In this case, CFS and Coalition to Protect Puget Sound allege that the U.S. Army Corps (USACE) failed to properly consider the potential risks before reissuing the nationwide permit for commercial shellfish activities in January 2021, in violation of the Clean Water Act, National Environmental Policy Act, and Endangered Species Act. In addition, USACE has authorized over 400 commercial shellfish operations without any public notice or environment review. Consequently, these operations have significant adverse, effects on Washington's local environment and wildlife. 

 

 In this webinar, Kristina will provide an overview of USACE's shellfish permitting requirements, as well as the ongoing litigation challenging USACE's unlawful shellfish permitting actions. She will also share some insights from this legal work and potential opportunities for future advocacy. 

Background on USACE's Permitting Requirements
History of USACE's Unlawful Permitting Actions in Washington
Previous Case
Current Case

Future Opportunities

Olympic Forest Coalition Files Clean Water Act Suit Against Coast Seafood

Discharging 25,920 gallons per hour,*

Coast Seafoods should be required

to apply for a discharge permit.

(*estimate from Coast Seafoods discharge report)

It's not grandma's hatchery anymore.

Did you notice my Notice?

Following a Notice of Intent to File Suit sent to Coast Seafoods, dated October 20, 2015, the Olympic Forest Coalition  has followed through and filed a Clean Water Act lawsuit against Coast Seafoods. In the papers filed, OFC claims Coast Seafoods is illegally discharging waste water through pipes and culverts into Quilcene Bay without a discharge permit. Coast Seafoods claims as they are a hatchery facility, they are exempt.

Wiegardt Brothers Pleads Guilty

to Clean Water Act Violation

in Willapa Bay

Pristine waters of Willapa Bay?

Do you really care about clean water?

This suit follows a plea of guilty by the Wiegardt Brothers* shellfish company last June, in Willapa Bay, for violating the Clean Water Act. In that case the shellfish company was accused of violating conditions of its discharge permit, resulting in a $100,000 fine and a $75,000 community service fee. Unlike shellfish hatcheries, in the case of Wiegardt Brothers, their processing facility was required to have a National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit. Conditions of that permit required specific samples to be taken from a specific spot which were not done for a period of almost 2 years. (*Wiegardt Brothers is one of the shellfish companies wanting to spray imidacloprid on shellfish beds in Willapa Bay, with Ken Wiegardt being the one who has signed the new permit application January 8, 2016.)

A non-point discharge?

We see what we want.

It's a factory, not a nursery. It discharges waste water through pipes. That water is not as clean as what is drawn in. This facility needs a permit.

Modern shellfish hatcheries are not benign operations of days gone by. In the case of Coast Seafoods, OFC claims water entering the facility from Puget Sound does not exit the facility in the same state. They point to chemicals being added to buffer the water; antibiotics being added to kill bacteria; phytoplankton being added; water temperature being changed; and, chlorine-based chemicals being added. And water discharged containing all of it, impacting Quilcene Bay.

Control their discharges, but not mine. 

The shellfish industry does not like being regulated. They have the motivation and the money to hire well paid attorneys and marine biologists willing to create studies painting a picture which is not reality. They are altering the marine ecosystems of Washington's waters and what the Shoreline Management Act and the Clean Water Act were intended to regulate. Get involved. They are.

Willapa Bay Shellfish Grower Fined $175,000 for Clean Water Act Violations - DOE Taken for Another Ride

Who is managing who? 

The Willapa Bay shellfish industry takes

the Department of Ecology for another ride.

June 19, 2015: Wiegardt Brothers Inc. (WBI) president pleads guilty to violating the Clean Water Act.

2012 - 2014: Permit monitoring violations by WBI knowingly occurred.

April 8, 2013: Department of Ecology reauthorizes WBI's permit based on "up to date information on the facility's waste treatment practices" in order to "...minimize the number of active permits that have passed their expiration dates..."

Just tell them what they want to hear.

Or don't.

Continuing to confirm shellfish growers are far from being the PR description of "good stewards" of Washington's most critical marine waters and habitat, Willapa Bay shellfish grower and seafood processor WBI has been found guilty of knowingly discharging untested effluent into Willapa Bay for two years, between 2012 and 2014. The Seattle Times reported June 20th the president and majority owner of WBI (Frederic "Fritz" Wiegardt) was fully aware WBI was "...not performing the monthly effluent sampling that their permit required." [For more, see Department of Justice press release.]

"Compliance with fecal coliform limits

has proved difficult for most seafood processors."

Department of Ecology, Discharge Permit Reauthorization, 

April 2013

What about everybody else? Does that mean nobody

needs to care any longer about fecal coliform discharges?

In April of 2013, at a time when Mr. Wiegardt was fully aware of the permit violations occurring, DOE approved a reauthorization of WBI's discharge permit for an additional 5 years. In that reauthorization notice, they write seafood processors had difficulty complying with fecal coliform limits so were not overly concerned of past violations. Included was a table from February 2008 showing 5 separate days of exceeding fecal coliform levels, in one month. It was assumed none were reported after that date, but based on the admitted guilt of inadequate monitoring it is now impossible to say. (Note: While Public Notice of the decision was published in the Chinook Observer in January of 2013, it did not note a reauthorization versus renewal process had occurred.)

Advantages of Reauthorization over Renewal

It's less work for DOE because it will

"...minimize the number of active permits 

that have passed their expiration dates..."

(Department of Ecology)

In consideration of reauthorizing or renewing discharge permits, DOE has the option of either doing a complete review of the permit or simply reauthorizing the permit. How DOE lessens its workload through reauthorization versus renewal is explained in the permit reauthorization notice this way:

When Ecology reauthorizes a discharge permit it essentially reissues the permit with the existing limits, terms and conditions. Alternatively, when Ecology renews a permit it re-evaluates the impact of the discharge on the receiving water, which may lead to changes in the limits, terms and conditions of the permit. [i.e., it takes more work]

 The 2013 reauthorization document noted DOE was not concerned over fecal coliform violations, apparently because it is "difficult for most seafood processors" to control. Instead, DOE was satisfied with reliance on shellfish grower WBI because:

"Ecology has up-to date information on the facility’s waste treatment practices, the facility’s production levels; and the nature, content, volume, and frequency of its discharge (see more information in Appendix C)."

“What really got us was the social media,” said Willapa Bay 

shellfish grower Ken Wiegardt, a fifth-generation farmer.

Chinook Observer, June 15, 2015 

quoting WBI's "fifth generation" member

on why the people did not want

the neurotoxin imidacloprid sprayed

into Willapa Bay and its shellfish beds.

Lost on the Wiegardt and Sheldon families is that it is the duplicity of the shellfish industry which "really got" the public to revolt against the Willapa Bay shellfish growers, not "social media" making people aware of it. When the PR curtain of being a "good steward" is pulled back to reveal how little shellfish growers really care about the marine habitat they profit so well from, hiring a public relations firm won't help. Unless you happen to be an employee of a public relations firm or a lobbyist. Then you can expect the shills to prosper.