Shellfish Protection District SuccessBy Kevin Petrie One frozen night last January four people stood huddled around a rickety, wooden table perched on a squat, grassy bluff above the beach on Henderson Inlet. It was past one in the morning, just under 30 degrees, and three of the four people standing with head lamps in the dark and quiet were volunteers, there to help sort oysters by size and shape at the Henderson Inlet Community Shellfish Farm. When the farm was started in 2003, commercial shellfish cultivation - a staple of Henderson Inlet since at least the turn of the 20th century - was illegal due to high concentrations of fecal coliform bacteria. Once a productive oyster farming area, the inlet was rocked by a series of water quality downgrades throughout the 1980's and 90's. In 2001, Thurston County created the Henderson-Nisqually Shellfish Protection District as required by state law. The two protection districts (Henderson and Nisqually) encompass the entire city of Lacey, Olympia's far east side, and stretches south to cover watersheds bordering upon Yelm. The goal of a shellfish protection district is to curb the loss of shellfish beds caused by non-point pollution, defined as any pollution caused by activities across the landscape. In Henderson Inlet the primary problems identified by a 2002 Thurston County Public Health and Social Services study included agricultural runoff, storm water runoff from urban areas, faulty or leaking private septic systems, and improperly disposed of pet waste. A number of actors were involved with the clean-up of Henderson. The city of Lacey completely revamped its storm water management program, the Pacific Shellfish Institute created community outreach programs to combat the issue of pet waste, the county implemented a program requiring inspection and maintenance of private septic systems, and in 2003 the Henderson Inlet Community Shellfish Farm was established as a means of community outreach. "We were using the farm to focus the community on water quality issues...to provide a hands-on experience," explains Brian Allen, an ecologist and project director for Puget Sound Restoration Fund, as well as a commercial shellfish farmer. "We had busloads of kids going home and telling their parents to pick up dog poop and not pour stuff down the drain. Eventually that kind of thing sinks in, and the water quality improves." In fact, the water quality in Henderson Inlet several times has been upgraded several times since the protection district took effect, most recently in June of 2012, when the Washington State Department of Health upgraded 100 acres of commercial shellfish beds, adding to the 240 acres upgraded in 2010. Water quality has improved so dramatically that the community shellfish farm now sits on commercially viable acreage where none existed just a few years ago. "Initially it was plant some cultch [oyster shell inoculated with oyster seed] and then come back in a few years," says Allen. "That was a way to get people excited. To say 'Hey, if we do something about water quality we might actually be able to come back and eat these things.'" Not everyone agrees that this type of water quality improvement is a good thing, or even that it constitutes improvement. Susan Macomson owns waterfront property on the Nisqually Reach, near the mouth of Henderson Inlet, an area favored by geoduck farmers. She speaks bluntly about the impacts she has observed on her stretch of beach, which has geoduck cultivation on either side. "It's dead," she says. "We used to have worms, crabs, flatfish...we don't have anything anymore." Macomson is similarly straightforward on the issue of water quality. "It hasn't improved," she explains. "Geoducks poop too." Laura Hendricks, head of the Sierra Club's Marine Ecosystem Campaign in Washington, agrees. "Where is the water quality improving?" she asks. "We just don't see it. Fecal contamination is the only thing the shellfish industry cares about." "There's clean water, and there's healthy water, and we think they're degrading water quality for everyone," says Hendricks. "They just don't talk about the full range of impacts. What about the impact of adding 120,000 new organisms to the tidelands?" The full range of impacts, particularly when it comes to geoduck farming, the fastest expanding and most contentious form of shellfish aquaculture, is difficult to ascertain. Long term studies are needed, and because large scale geoduck cultivation is only a couple of decades old, those studies simply don't exist. Some research has been conducted regarding the short term impacts of geoduck aquaculture, and the results seem to point to a negligible amount of environmental detriment. But overall, results are mixed. "Data collected to date suggest that structures associated with geoduck aquaculture may attract species observed infrequently on reference beaches (e.g. bay pipefish) but may displace species that typically occur in these areas (e.g. starry flounder)." states the University of Washington's Geoduck Aquaculture Research Program's Interim Progress Report. The report also notes increases in a variety of crab species, and notes that once aquaculture structures are removed, beaches seem to revert to a pre-cultivated state fairly quickly. Lisa Jameela, a laboratory technician working on a similar study with the Pacific Shellfish Institute, agrees. "I see a lot of shellfish aquaculture gear that is utilized the same way that natural reefs are," she said via e-mail. "Geoduck tubes are used as refuge for small, mobile invertebrates who can crawl in and outside of the netting." Many in the aquaculture industry question the backlash against geoduck farming, theorizing that the majority of property owners opposed to the practice are more concerned with aesthetics than ecology. Brian Allen sees that as the reason for many of the challenges against geoduck operations while oyster cultivation goes largely unmolested. Geoducks are grown in different areas than oysters; they prefer sandy beaches, many of which have been developed over the last few decades. "Aquaculture moved into developed shorelines with million dollar homes everyplace, in what used to be rural areas. These areas have been gentrified. That's why this geoduck aquaculture is so contentious," Allen says. "...It's new and people aren't used to seeing it." Laura Hendricks dismisses the argument as nothing more than a semantic ruse. "The industry is trying to portray it as business as usual. Small family farms," she says. "They're trying to convince the public it's the same. It's not the same. There's a place for aquaculture in Puget Sound. But they didn't used to eradicate all the other animals. It's not about continuation, it's about expansion. It's about industrialization." On this point, at least in part, Allen agrees. He used to run his farm as a full time operation, but has had to reduce it to a 'hobby farm' because he can't afford to compete with giants like Taylor Shellfish while contending with a host of expensive new permit requirements. He wanted to expand his business, but ended up having to scale down instead. He says lobbying to get permits for areas not yet approved for cultivation is far too expensive and time consuming for the small operator, so the only way to expand is by purchasing other small companies in your area. "Aquisition isn't an option for us. I don't have that kind of money, but some companies do," he says. "You get the small businesses taken up by larger businesses. There is industry consolidation and it's going to continue. The days of having a small operator start something and build it independently, I think those days are gone." And if larger companies continue to expand their reach, the trend of increased industrialization that so concerns Laura Hendricks is likely to continue. She is worried that expansion will continue unchecked until all of the South Sound resembles Totten Inlet, of which over 90% is under aquaculture cultivation. "They're going after Henderson now," she laments. "How much is enough? Where does it stop? How can these animals live the way they're supposed to if you have human disturbance 100% of the time?" Brian Allen sees much of the conflict as a historical failure, and a continuing one. "What we don't have is good planning," he says. "We have areas that are good for shellfish. Maybe we should plan for that and zone for that. There's a lack of perspective, and I think that's causing a lot of these conflicts." There are few certainties in an environment as dynamic as the South Sound. But rest assured, shellfish aquaculture, including geoduck aquaculture, is here to stay. If it is to be protected - as an ecological system, a food source, or a commercial resource - individuals from all sides are going to have to work together and compromise. If the marine environment collapses, we all lose.
Derek King, who runs many of the day to day operations at Henderson Inlet Community Shellfish Farm, put it this way: Kevin Petrie is a senior at the Evergreen State College.
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