HomeMy WebLinkAbout071426 email - Response to your question of W__Why Now_ re_ JST letterALERT: BE CAUTIOUS This email originated outside the organization. Do not open attachments or click on links if you are not expecting them.
Commissioners:
I joined your yesterday meeting online. I was very pleased to hear your thoughtful discussion about a letter to Randall and Cantwell regarding taking the Dungeness National Refuge (DNWR)
and Protection Island (PI) from public ownership.
Protect the Peninsula’s Future (PPF) has submitted comments in earlier meetings, and online with more extensive information which included caution about trusting the Tribe in all matters.
But here I want to respond to your question, “Why Now?” PPF addressed this early, but since the question came up again yesterday, it seems necessary to remind you of the following.
The bottom line is that the Tribe is using this Letter of Support and urgently putting the land under BIA status to end the law suit and USFWS actions. The Tribe knows that if a USFWS
Compatibility Determination (CD) is accurately done, major impacts to the Refuge by the Tribe’s proposed mega-industrial-shellfish operation will work against them.
On August 16, 2023, Protect the Peninsula’s Future, the Coalition to Protect Puget Sound Habitat, and Beyond Pesticides (Plaintiffs) sued the USFWS because it failed to write a CD for
the Jamestown S’Klallam’s proposed 34-acre, industrial-oyster operation of 80,000 allowed plastic bags of non-native oysters. The U.S. District Court in Tacoma heard the case. Just
prior to the Judge’s decision, the Tribe attempted to intervene. It said it should be a party to the legal action because its financial investments could be harmed. The Judge disagreed
and clarified the issue was about having the USFWS follow its regulations and prepare a CD.
The Tribe appealed its rejected intervention to the U.S. 9th Circuit Appellate Court. All briefs - Tribe’s, USFWS’s and Plaintiff’s - were submitted to this Court by the end
of June 2026. We now wait for the Court’s decision. The Tribe is now asking the government to have these lands placed in permanent private trust for them and remove them from the public
trust, which would moot the law suit.
The Tribe is forthcoming on its intent to fill the Dungeness Spit area with acres of on-bottom bags of oysters anchored into the sediment. To Quote Ron Allen, “They’d likely bring
an oyster farm there.” https://www.sequimgazette.com/2026/04/01/jamestown-seeks-land-transfer-of-dungeness-refuge-protection-island/ This would smother the benthic life, add large
amounts of plastic polluting the marine system, harm eelgrass beds needed for bird and salmon protection, and deprive and endanger wildlife dependent on these lands.
If the Tribe could get the Refuge under BIA status [and PI], it would not, as Ron Allen said, have to answer to anyone or have anyone monitor what it does. By just continuing with co-management
status, there is agency and public oversight. Hopefully you will support this and oppose these refuge lands being privatized..
Regarding Gordon King’s comments yesterday, they were not surprising, as he works for tribal and non tribal aquaculture interests. I didn’t hear him introduce his professional association.
Darlene Schanfald, Ph.D.
Protect the Peninsula’s Future
PO Box 421
Sequim WA 98382
1-360-681-7565
Civilizations do not fall only from war or economics.
They fall when the living systems that sustain them are quietly dismantled.
Joseph Varon January 26, 2026