HomeMy WebLinkAbout012124 SMP Geoduck CUP commentsALERT: BE CAUTIOUS This email originated outside the organization. Do not open attachments or click on links if you are not expecting them.
Dear Commissioners:
Though I have commented in the past, after watching the last meeting with staff and consultants on this issue, I wish to comment further.
I must say that the meeting’s tedium and length was often because staff deflected and meandered rather than answer your questions directly. Brevity and relevant substance is all that
is needed.
Jefferson County’s SMP. should include a CUP for all geoduck operations. Such a simple decision has been drawn out and has been costly time wise and financially. Why does staff not
want the public involved in some geoduck permitting decisions? What is this power grab really about? I said before, but it is worth mentioning again, that waters know no boundaries.
The counties on both sides of Jefferson County have CUPs for geoducks aquaculture.
Al Bergstein, who helped write your county’s SMP and former MRC Chair, in a recent conversation asked why this issue was put before the Planning Commission rather than your MRC, where
it should have gone. It seems the process itself has been flawed.
PLASTICS
Staff/consultants told you that the mesh tubes were an advancement and stable; that they are not released to float away. That seems not to be the case. At the recent Henderson Inlet
public hearing in front of a hearings examiner, sworn testimony by a citizen held up a dislodged mesh tube she found some distance from the nearby geoduck operation. These waters are
rough, even in inlets. In open waters in Jefferson County, there is more wind and wave exposure and more opportunity for these mesh tubes to dislodge and float away..
As well, plastics degenerate in to smaller and smaller pieces entering the marine ecosystem and potentially the animals themselves. You can find on line many references to the plastic
impacts to the marine ecosystem from geoduck operations
Mitigated determinations are only enforced if someone complains that a mitigation was not followed. I.E., it leaves it to burden citizens to be the responsible watchers and the enforcers.
Permit writers are finished once the permit is signed.
EELGRASS
By law, shellfish operations must be at least 16 feet from eelgrass beds. Practically hey cannot be, and this is why. Once these acres of tubes, mesh, whatever are embedded in the
benthic system, the natural movement of the sediments are moved elsewhere. In a USACE Memo to Record, the Corps addressed this sediment-shift, eelgrass-bed issue in relation to the
applicant’s oyster farm proposed for the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge and how the sediment would be shifted in to the eelgrass beds 25 feet away. In other words, these shellfish
operations repurpose the entire ecosystem in their wake. All for commerce that allows these businesses to sell their “crops” abroad for big bucks while the local residents and wildlife
are left with the damage.
CUMULATIVE IMPACTS
In a legal decision signed by Judge Robert Lasnik, the harm of all these shellfish operations was spelled out; cumulative impacts being one. Less than 5 years ago, it was thought that
there were 900 operations lining 34% of WA State’s Puget sound-Pacific Coast coastal waters. Now the estimate is 1000. Often they expand themselves quarter mile by quarter mile.
But each has significant impact. That means wildlife has lost that much of its natural habitat. A cost to various species and a cost to people that enjoy viewing nature.
NNL
No net loss was brought up.. NNL is also about protecting recreational areas and opportunities.
Please do not make this issue more complex. Rule in favor for the public’s right to investigate and comment and rule against this “unique discretionary” idea.
Darlene Schanfald, Ph.D.
darlenes@olympus.net <mailto:darlenes@olympus.net>
360-681-7565