SEQUIM — The Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe’s proposal to reestablish oyster farming in Dungeness Bay is undergoing a third-party review to address the monitoring of shorebirds and waterfowl — and how impacts of the farming project will be monitored.
Western EcoSystems Technology, Inc. contracted with Clallam County Department of Community Development to conduct the review of the Avian Monitoring Plan for the Dungeness Bay Oyster Farm, a project that by a third phase could see as many as 80,000 bags placed on the bottom of a 34-acre site within Dungeness Bay.
Elizabeth Tobin, shellfish program manager with the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, said the consultant, West EcoSystems Technology, Inc., completed the review but that the tribe has not yet received a final report, or any required or recommended revisions to the avian monitoring methods.
While the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has finalized the existing monitoring plan, the county needs to provide final approval of the Avian Monitoring Plan before the tribe can begin Phase 1 operations, Tobin said. Phase 1 allows for a 5-acre area of on-bottom bag cultivation at a maximum commercial bag density of 4,000 bags per acre.
In a technical memorandum to DCD director Mary Ellen Winborn and DCD senior planner Greg Ballard on Jan. 7, consultants from West EcoSystems Technology, Inc., described the scope of the plan that includes “adaptive management measures to respond to any identified adverse responses of shorebirds and waterfowl to operations.
“The inclusion of an adaptive management plan into the plan minimizes the potential for repeated adverse responses to birds,” they said.
But concerns remain.
Local environmentalist Darlene Schanfald is worried about loss of bird feeding and rearing grounds, introduction of plastics into the marine ecosystem and animals, and impacts to the eelgrass beds.
“Aquaculture is polluting, period,” Schanfald said. “Bottomlands get wrecked. Poisons get spewed around.”
Several state lawmakers are developing legislation protecting these beds through House Bill 1661, she said.
The bill, which focuses on conserving and restoring kelp forests and eelgrass meadows, is sponsored by 20 Democrats, including Steve Tharinger of Port Townsend, who is one of three who represent Legislative District 24 covering Clallam and Jefferson counties and part of Grays Harbor County. It was in committee as of Thursday.
“The permitting governments for the oyster operation seemed to have ignored this legislation,” Schanfald said.
She added that public money being spent to clean up Puget Sound is being wasted by allowing aquaculture projects.
“You can’t clean up Puget Sound if you’re putting out shellfish farms and net pens,” she said, referring to the tribe’s planned partnership with Cooke Aquaculture Pacific to farm all-female native steelhead trout in net pens in Port Angeles Harbor, a decision upheld by the state Supreme Court in January.
Schanfald also said that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers signed off on its permit in June and the state Department of Ecology followed suit, despite more than 100 commenters from national organizations, nonprofits and citizens who opposed to the project.
The Friends of Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge raise other concerns about the proposed oyster farm on the group’s website at www.fodnwr.org.
These include wildlife potentially being trapped in the mesh nags or ingesting plastic debris as bags break down, detracting from the site as a tourist attraction through visual pollution and noise pollution disturbing wildlife.
Dungeness Bay is a premier estuaries in the Pacific Northwest, according to the the National Audubon Society, which has noted the tens of thousands of shorebirds, gulls, and waterfowl it draws during migration and winter.
Sandflats and mudflats provide feeding areas while subtidal eelgrass beds and associated fauna support large populations of Brant, diving ducks, seabirds, loons, grebes, and other diving birds, the society says.
“The eelgrass is a principle habitat for many kinds of invertebrates, larval fish,” said Jim Karr, a retired professor, when he and others protested the shellfish project just outside the Refuge in October.
“The success of any species in the bay … is dependent on the matrix of hundreds of other species that are present,” he said.
“You can’t protect them unless you’ve protected the processes and the elements of the system that interact.”
Karr said the avian monitoring plan was vague and lacked specifics to improve the tribe’s monitoring plan.
“The report touches ever so lightly on many of the important topics, re the need to track multiple attributes of the target bird groups (especially shorebirds and waterfowl) defined by the hearing process,” he said.
“(The) report hints at things that would be good, but without the clearer and more accurate statement that these are essential for a successful scientific evaluation of the effects of oyster aquaculture on the target species in the NWR. ”
