Seattle Shellfish Geoduck Hatchery: Permit Hearing December 10, 1PM

Update 11/7: Comments on the SEPA determination being a Mitigated Determination of Non-Significance (MDNS) are due by the end of today.

Shoreline Permit Hearing in Mason County
(Note: The SEPA determination has already been made.)

Date:  December 10
Time: 1PM
Location: Commissioner's Chambers of Building I, 411 North Fifth ST, Shelton
RE: Mason County Shoreline Permit SHR2013-00013, Seattle Shellfish Hatchery Facility
Description: Construction of two single story hatchery buildings, an algae growing area ( greenhouse), a seawater intake and return system, driveway and parking improvements and stormwater conveyances.

Proposed Location of Hatchery Facility



(click to enlarge)

Mason County will hold a hearing on Seattle Shellfish's proposal to install a new hatchery facility on their upland property located adjacent to Spencer Cove on Harstine Island. The hatchery is to address a seed shortage in general but more specifically to allow Seattle Shellfish to break from being dependent on Taylor Shellfish and the Lummi Tribe for their geoduck seed.

Tideland Ownership
There is a question of whether the tidelands within the lagoon which the proposal is adjacent to were ever transferred by the state into private ownership. While private transactions indicated ownership, there do not appear to be any deeds from the state. The original survey which the state based ownership and sales off of did not include the lagoon area. The surveyor only traced the outer shoreline along the spit, across the entrance, then northward along Spencer Cove, leaving the lagoon separated. As noted, tideland deeds from the state do not indicate they were ever transferred into private ownership.

Plate from 1880 of Spencer Cove and the Lagoon 

State surveyors did not include the lagoon.

Tidelands waterward of the blue line were sold.

 Current Use of Lagoon and Tidelands
Currently the lagoon is used by Seattle Shellfish for staging their barges onto which PVC pipes and other materials are loaded from the upland area. On occasion the barges use the tidelands to rest on when the tide is out (see picture above). How the Department of Natural Resources will resolve this legal issue is unknown.

Current Use of Lagoon's Tidelands

(hatchery proposal is upland

from the access road)

(click to enlarge)

Seattle Shellfish Tries to Break Away with New Hatchery

Proposed location of

Seattle Shellfish hatchery.

(click to enlarge)

In an apparent attempt to break the ties to geoduck seed suppliers which Seattle Shellfish is dependent on they have proposed locating a new shellfish hatchery on Harstine Island's Spencer Cove. [click here for permit] Located adjacent to a small pocket estuary* the facility would allow Seattle Shellfish to better control its production and perhaps reduce costs.

(*The pocket estuary's ownership is in dispute. Washington never transferred the tidelands to private ownership. Previous owners assumed they had owned the pocket estuary's tideland area, and Seattle Shellfish assumed they had acquired them. However, this was not the case and is another example of tideland ownership challenges. DNR has yet to resolve the issue. From use of the area by Seattle Shellfish it appears they are happy to wait for DNR to act.)

Satellite view showing current use,

including bagged PVC pipes (lower left)

used for planting. The tidelands seen

in the right half are still state owned.

(click to enlarge)



There are currently a limited number of hatcheries which supply geoduck seed to Puget Sound growers. Taylor Shellfish and the Lummi Tribe are the dominant two. If they chose not to sell seed to a grower that grower is unable to "plant" geoduck during the limited windows when the south Puget Sound tides are at their lowest levels. Perhaps also driving the decision is the subtidal commercial geoduck farm proposed by the Detienne family and Chelsea Farms in Pierce County.

Subtidal area of Spencer Cove

owned by Seattle Shellfish.

In the case of Seattle Shellfish, they are one of the few tideland owners whose tidelands extend into the subtidal area. Those areas have not yet been exploited as they currently are in Alaska and Canada. Should Seattle Shellfish wish to expand operations into that subtidal area there most likely would not be a sufficient source of seed for them to do so. Should the Detienne permit in Pierce County be approved, or should the state require replanting after their subtidal harvesting, it would open significant areas for commercial subtidal planting leading to an increase in seed demand. When Combined with recent permit approvals likely to expand significantly the tideland areas growing geoduck it is easy to understand the concern Seattle Shellfish has over controlling seed supply.