Here Come the Chinese: Lust for Big Clams Brings Largest Shellfish Facility on the West Coast

Hummingbird Cove Shellfish Hatchery

Small bird, big hatchery, big numbers, big impact.

365,000 square feet:  A lot of space costs a lot to produce big clams in big numbers.

The Powell River Peak writes about a Chinese aquaculture firm, Pacific Aquaculture, which has followed the path set by Chinese energy firms who have invested in the west and elsewhere to ensure a steady supply of carbon based fuels far into the future. Pacific Aquaculture has currently invested $10 million in a shellfish hatchery which opened on the 19th. They plan to invest an additional $40 million over the next five years to create a shellfish facility which, at 365,000 square feet, will dwarf anything on the west coast, or most likely in the world. The project, in conjunction with Hummingbird Cove Lifestyles, was first described in Hatchery International in October of last year but was then far smaller.

US Shellfish Companies: Now just

big clams in a little tank?

We used to be the big clams here

In comparison to Pacific Aquacutlure's 365,000 square foot facility, Taylor Shellfish - purported to be the largest shellfish producer in the United States - has a hatchery on Dabob Bay estimated to be 30,000 square feet in size. Production facilities in Shelton are estimated at 27,000 square feet, with those at Samish Bay being estimated at 9,000 square feet. As noted, Pacific Aquacutlure's will be 365,000 square feet.

Aloha from Goose Point Oyster in Hawaii.

We'll always have the condo.

20,000 square feet is big?

Is that Aloha a hello or goodbye to profits in the shellfish industry?

Unlike the Taylor hatchery in Dabob Bay being able to adapt to what is currently felt to be problems caused by ocean acidification, the Nisbet family's Goose Point Oyster simply scaled back their "Whiskey Creek" hatchery facility in Willapa Bay and built a new 20,000 square foot facility in Hawaii. As the article in the Seattle Times notes,  only a handful of hatcheries supply West Coast farmers, including Whiskey Creek and Taylor Shellfish. With a facility now in operation, which at 365,000 square feet will dwarf anything on the west coast, flooding the market with shellfish seed, including geoduck, how long can the profits in the shellfish industry be expected to last?

They said I'd make money. Why should I care?

I never promised you a shellfish garden.

Because shellfish companies no longer have tidelands to use, they lease tidelands from private individuals and promise "great" returns in exchange for encumbering their property, in some cases for decades. Any concerns about their role in the creation of these point sources of plastic pollution, loose nets, and fractured tideland ecosystems, along with fractured relationships with neighbors, many nurtured over generations, are diminished by the salve made from promises of monetary cream being rubbed onto these tideland owners' palms. The Chinese, however, through Pacific Aquaculture, will no longer be beholden to shellfish companies in the northwest supplying artificially constrained supplies, and inflated prices, of geoduck. Revenues will drop and the gravy train will stop. As investments in energy failed when supply overtook demand, so too will investments - and promises of riches - in the shellfish industry fail when oversupply drives prices down and the Chinese are able to supply themselves with geoduck. Leaving behind plastic tubes and structures, as Drakes Bay Oyster Company did when they walked away from Drakes Estero, leaving the taxpayers to clean up the remains.

Chinese do not like 

paying artificially inflated prices

for geoduck so will grow their own.

Sorry, I don't think that was part of the permit.

Who will pick up what's left behind when companies are no longer profitable? This bubble is no different than any bubble which has preceeded it. It will pop. Pacific Aquaculture is a big pin with a strong hand pressing on the bubble. And when it pops, Puget Sound will be left with PVC, nets, and plastic to cleanup.

Get involved. 

Demand that bonds be required for all shellfish farms currently permitted to guarantee Puget Sound is not left in the state Drakes Estero was when Drakes Bay Oyster Company decided it was best to just walk away, leaving taxpayers to pick up the mess.

Ocean Acidification - It's not complicated. Or is it?

The University of Washington's Ph.D. professor Cliff Mass has questioned whether modern civilization's increasing production of CO2 is the primary cause of ocean acidification and of shellfish hatchery failures. He questions if instead those failures may be more closely tied to an attempt at raising non-native oysters in waters colder and at times more "acidic" than where the shellfish are from. He has written a second perspective to the Seattle Times articles. In his second piece he writes:

"The ST suggested that mankind’s emission of CO2 was having profound effects today on shellfish in Northwest waters.   I argued that the ST story was exaggerating the current impacts of CO2 increases and neglected a key point: that the short periods of lowered ph (a measure of acid/base ) were predominantly caused by natural variability.  The truth is that mankind's CO2 emission is actually a very minor player in the current problems at local oyster larvae hatcheries."

Billions lost millions still harvested
Within the shellfish industry there is a belief that the cause of shellfish hatchery failures and the loss of "billions of oysters"* is directly related to increasing levels of CO2 being absorbed by the ocean's waters which in turn are causing a shift in the chemical makeup of those waters. It is believed that the increasing CO2 concentration in seawater decreases carbonate ions. This decrease in carbonate ions affects the saturation state for calcium carbonate, which makes it harder for shelled organisms to grow and maintain shells. As noted, Professor Mass believes the anthropogenic source is a small percentage of the cause.

*As a side note, according to production reports from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, between 2008 and 2012 the pounds of oysters harvested in Washington state have remained relatively steady. From WDFW: 2008-9.7 million pounds; 2009-8.8 million pounds; 2010-9.1 million pounds; 2011-9.3 million pounds; and, 2012-9.4 million pounds. As it takes ~2 years for an oyster to reach maturity, the 2008 numbers include seed produced in 2006.

A complicated web and a chemical soup
It is important to understand that while the shellfish industry may be having problems "hatching" non-native shellfish using Puget Sound's colder waters, where native Olympia oysters and Geoduck appear to have no problems, there may be multiple causes for whatever problems they face, including genetically modifying oysters so they are sterile. The spraying of Willapa Bay tidelands to eliminate species of shrimp considered to be a "pest" by the industry is another example of a self-induced problem. Eliminating these shrimp causes sediments to firm and in turn creates a habitat suitable for Japanese eelgrass to grow in which the shellfish industry now wants to spray with Imazamox. It is little wonder the office of the Attorney General referred to Willapa Bay as a "chemical soup."

Crying wolf is counterproductive
Professor Mass summarizes his position in the following words:

The truth is that anthropogenic increases in CO2 are only having subtle impacts on our regional weather today, the big changes and impacts will occur decades into the future. Both global warming and ocean acidification are very serious issues and by the end of the century their impacts will be substantial.   But exaggerating and hyping the effects today are unacceptable.  Citizens and policy makers deserve the facts, not exaggerations designed to elicit the proper response.  Crying wolf in the end is counterproductive and undermines the credibility of science to promote the proper actions is unacceptable.