Pierce County Shoreline Master Program Update: Final Decision by Council

Public testimony regarding Pierce County's SMP Update will be taken at the meeting or online. 

(See here: 

https://online.co.pierce.wa.us/cfapps/council/iview/proposal.cfm?proposal_num=2019-59)

SMP Update vote by Pierce County Council

September 10, 3PM

930 Tacoma Avenue South, Room 1045
Tacoma, WA 98402

(See meeting information here: 

https://online.co.pierce.wa.us/cfapps/council/iview/councilMeeting.cfm?meeting_dt=Sep%2010%202019%20%203:00PM

After an appeal to the Growth Management Hearings Board by the shellfish industry's Taylor Shellfish, Seattle Shellfish, and, the Foss family's North Bay Partners (who leases tidelands to Taylor Shellfish) a decision by the Growth Management Hearings Board found Pierce County's updated Shoreline Master Program (SMP) to be too restrictive. As a result, a number of sections and amendments were dropped, some changed, others left as is. Generally, oversight of aquaculture has been made far more favorable to the industry. On the other hand, the GMHB did clarify that aquaculture does not have a priority over any other water dependent uses.
(See decision here: http://www.gmhb.wa.gov/Global/RenderPDF?source=casedocument&id=6516)
(See decision on a request for reconsideration here: http://www.gmhb.wa.gov/Global/RenderPDF?source=casedocument&id=6553)

After a public hearing was held August 19 by the Community Development Committee, and testimony heard, they recommended a "Do Pass".

(See information on that meeting here:

https://online.co.pierce.wa.us/cfapps/council/iview/committeeMeeting.cfm?id=3596)

Generally, oversight of aquaculture has been made far more favorable to the industry and state wide interests (however that is defined) were prioritized over the local interest. On the other hand, the GMHB did clarify that aquaculture does not have a priority over any other water dependent uses. 

Many people  devoted a great deal of time and effort in trying to ensure the marine habitat of Pierce County is preserved as best as possible. The aquaculture industry, and tideland owners who benefit financially from developments in their tidelands, devoted a great deal of money to ensuring their needs were met. Tomorrow, the Council will decide if they will accept what the GMHB has told them to.

Other legal efforts continue, some at a state level, others at the national level, with the goal being to preserve and protect the critical marine habitat unique to Puget Sound.

House Bill 1037/Imidacloprid - Pesticides/Politics/Oyster Lobbyists in Washington State

An Exercise in the Political Process In WA:

Polluting Washington's Marine Waters.

House Bill 1037

If at first you don't succeed: How to get approval to apply pesticides directly onto oyster beds and marine waters in Puget Sound, Grays Harbor and Willapa Bay: 

1. Give a Bill a sweet sounding name: "The Aquaculture Fairness Act" (House Bill 1037)

2. Claim that because others are polluting Washington's marine waters then you should be allowed to as well. Section 2(2) of HB1037: 

"...runoff from the yards pours into storm drains in urban areas and is carried out to the sea"

3. Never give up: After being told by the Department of Ecology they would not approve a permit to apply Imidacloprid to oyster beds and marine waters in Willapa Bay and Grays Harbor, the oyster industry did not give up. They appealed the denial.
4. Continue to be involved in the Department of Ecology's Clean Water Committee:  When the process fails, continue pressing within the political process and stay involved in Committees. Try to mend fences with other industries you've upset and turn a blind eye to what's being proposed by others within your industry.

From DOE on the shellfish industry being involved in a Clean Water Committee: Polluted runoff from our streets, forested lands and farms can carry nutrients, bacteria and other pollution into our lakes, streams and rivers. Preventing this type of pollution is our greatest challenge to restoring the health of Washington’s waters – a public resource.

5. Approve the draft of a Bill which supports your position that because runoff from the land is polluting Washington's marine waters then it should be okay for you to apply a pesticide directly onto Washington's oyster beds and in its marine waters (HB1037).

[Special Note: In the proposed Bill and any language used to promote the new narrative, be sure that you don't mention other industries as the source of runoff you're concerned with. It's only "...runoff from the yards...". Not dairy, cattle, agriculture or forestry the shellfish industry has so loudly complained about in the past.]

To read more on the history of the shellfish industry's involvement in transforming the tidelands and marine habitat, read M. Pearle's "Toxic Pearl" (read a review of the book here).

Available for purchase: at Amazon or Orca Books. 

2019 Brings Publication of a Book on Pesticides and the Shellfish Industry

In Toxic Pearl, the author reveals the secrets and politics that enabled the destruction of our Washington State native aquatic life, and inspires others to stand up and speak out against this continuing industrial conversion of our marine ecosystem.

- Laura Hendricks, Coalition to Protect Puget Sound

Toxic Pearl, Pacific NW Shellfish Companies' Addiction to Pesticides, by M. Perle, is “The toxic legacy of the WA Shellfish industry", writes Amy van Saun, Staff Attorney for Center for Food Safety.  People should want to know where their oysters come from and “the destructive relationship we can have with the environment that sustains us, and our own health."

A reader should take a broader view while reading this history and consider the link between the Columbia River salmon struggles through their migration to the Pacific Coast, then through their coastal feeding grounds in the toxic shellfish sites described in this book, then onward to the Strait of Juan de Fuca to feed the dwindling population of the Southern Resident ORCAs. It seems all related.

Again, the reader may want to take a more wholistic view of the loss of feeding grounds for migrating birds, such as the eelgrass-dependent Brant. A reader may consider the connection between the USFWS Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge eelgrass resting-feeding grounds for Brants, which could be facing habitat loss there from a proposed shellfish farm, to their stopover at Willapa Bay on the Pacific Coast. It, now, is more like a “grab-and-go” feeding site of whatever may be left by shellfish farmers, hopefully sustaining the birds until their next stopover site. Point being, what is left for these birds?  Where can they find resting sites and where can they find food without pesticides?  

Laura Hendricks of the Coalition to Protect Puget Sound writes, this book should “inspire others to stand up and speak out against this continuing industrial conversion of our marine ecosystems.”  As van Saun says, this doesn’t need to be the future.  

Website: www.toxicpearl.com provides additional information.

Available for sale here: https://www.orcabooks.com/book/9780578401621

Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge: Comments Due April 27, Hearing June 7

Permit SHR2017-00011

Clallam County Shoreline Permit

150,000 Bags of Non-native Pacific Oysters

in the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge

By April 27 - Clallam County Comment Form: http://www.clallam.net/features/emailClallam.asp?em=permits&caseid=SHR2017-00011

or,

By April 27 Email contact: Greg Ballard at gballard@co.clallam.wa.us *

(*Ask for an email confirming it was received. If you don’t get one within 24 hours, call Greg Ballard at 360.565.2616.)

June 7, 1PM - Public Hearing

Should portions of the tidelands of the

Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge

be allowed to be transformed

into a commercial aquaculture development

because the water is now cleaner?

Funding Sources

(from: https://fortress.wa.gov/ecy/publications/publications/1410041.pdf)

Public dollars fund a restoration.

In 2005 an oyster operation within the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge, which had been operating for decades, was abandoned due to water quality issues. Over the next 10 years millions of  taxpayer dollars in the form of grants from the EPA, including matching funds from Washington, was sourced by various groups (see "Funding Sources" above). These taxpayer funded grants were used to determine the source, and remedy the cause, of pollutants within the Dungeness watershed. In December of 2017 the tidelands within the National Wildlife Refuge were considered by the Department of Health to be "Conditionally" approved. 

DOH Classifications 

(from December 2017)

Now what? Clallam County, Army Corps, and the Department of Natural Resources

Currently there are two regulatory agencies, Clallam County and the Army Corps of Engineers, in the permitting process, and the Department of Natural Resources considering a lease. Clallam County had thought a hearing scheduled April 4th would be the end of public input, but the Hearing Examiner felt there was too much information still to be gathered from the public and various agencies before a decision could be made, so granted an extension for the comment period to April 27, to be followed by another Hearing June 7. Having denied qualification for a Nationwide permit, the Army Corps of Engineers is beginning to look at the proposal through their Individual Permitting process. Finally, the Department of Natural Resources is considering a new lease for the operation.

In a National Wildlife Refuge?

150,000 synthetic bags 

growing non-native Pacific oysters?

Lean forward and get involved. It's a National Wildlife Refuge on an easement granted to US Fish and Wildlife from the State for that purpose in 1943. It's 2018 and there's no "elsewhere" to go. 

These tidelands are neither privately held nor Tribal tidelands. The operation was abandoned 12 years ago. Public funds have indeed made the water quality better - the result of a number of groups, including the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe. However, this critical inter-tidal marine habitat is needed now than ever before. Industrial aquaculture is expanding throughout Puget Sound and it is fragmenting the marine habitat.

Reminder: May 21 - Industrial Aquaculture's Impact on Puget Sound Ecosystems

(Reposted from April 2)

The Association of Bainbridge Communities'

Annual Environmental Conference

(Note: The conference is free. However, due

to space limitations, registration is required.)

When: May 21, 12:30 pm to 5:30 pm
Where: 4450 Blakely Ave NE, Bainbridge Island, WA 98110
Registration: [click here] (Note: Space is limited so registration is required).

This may be good for a few corporations

and the very well off consumers in China,

but not for Puget Sound. Find out why.

The Association of Bainbridge Communities' annual Environmental Conference will cover the impacts to Puget Sound from industrial aquaculture. From the announcement:

"Speakers for this regional conference will cover ecosystem impacts, science and policy of aquaculture, legal aspects of the industry, food safety and health issues, problems with Atlantic salmon netpens, and experiences of neighbors living with this industry on their shorelines."

Agenda:

12:30 pm - Registration/Exhibits at IslandWood Welcome Center
1:00 pm - Introduction to Conference
1:10 pm - Overview of Impacts of Industrial Aquaculture
1:30 pm - Dispelling the Myths of Aquaculture
2:05 pm - Legal Aspects including Shellfish Initiative
2:35 pm - Regulatory Gaps in Permitting
3:00 pm - BREAK to visit exhibits
3:20 pm - Specific Aquaculture Topics: Atlantic Salmon Feedlots and Spraying and Health Issues
4:20 pm - Panel of Puget Sound Homeowners impacted by Industrial Aquaculture
5:20 pm - Next Steps: getting involved
5:30 pm - Adjournment

Shellfish Economics: China is not an endless market for shellfish.

Seafood Source writes on China and a market saturated with shellfish which has driven the price of what were once considered a luxury oyster down. So significant is the decline that "...many suppliers into China have not been making profits..". Asked why the sudden increase in supply occurred, the writer notes a grower as saying: "The Irish authorities have really progressed their licensing backlog quickly and efficiently."

What is the significance? Exactly the same thing is happening in the United States. Whether on the East Coast, the West Coast, or the Gulf Coast, political pressures from the shellfish industry is resulting in a dream long sought; "streamlined" permitting which will result in an expansion of operations. But as is often the case, be careful what you wish for as it may come true. In this case, along with the sudden expansion of operations will come, as it always does, a drop in price and a lack of profitability.

Who will pay to clean up

when the market collapses?

Economic models justify the expense of plastic structures currently appearing throughout the intertidal areas and waters of the US, in fact throughout the world. When that model changes and profits are no longer there, who will be left to clean up what is left behind as growers walk away? One simply needs to look at Drakes Estero to see one answer: the taxpayers.

While the reasons are different, the decision of Drakes Bay Oyster Company to simply walk away from a failed business model and leave taxpayers to pay for the clean up of over 500 tons of aquaculture gear and 5 miles of oyster racks in order to allow the restoration of eelgrass to occur points to what to expect. [Note: To be fair, the government could have stood its ground and made DBOC pay a far larger portion than nothing.]

As seen in the article written in Seafood Source, China is not an endless market where anything produced will sell. Geoduck are not exclusive to Puget Sound, growing in Alaska and British Columbia, even Mexico. When supply exceeds demand, who will be left to clean up the PVC and mesh tubes which are proliferating throughout Puget Sound?