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Officials from the Department of Natural Resources met with concerned citizens of the Puget Sound last Friday night on Harstine Island to discuss possible locations for future geoduck farming on public beaches.
The DNR has several proposed locations on the island and the Key Peninsula for farming.
Blain Reeves said the main goal for the DNR in considering uses for waterfront property was to encourage public use access, encourage environmental protection and to generate revenue.
Geoduck farming and land leases fall under the “generating revenue” category. He said that aquaculture fits in with generating revenue for water-dependent uses.
Sarah Dzinbal said the DNR was having trouble finding locations for the farming in South Puget Sound as opposed to the north, because the South Sound is more populated.
Perry Lund of the Department of Ecology said the state had a slightly schizophrenic attitude toward shoreline preservation. On one hand, it considered the shoreline among the most “valuable and fragile resources” but, on the other hand, it stated that those resources must be utilized.
That creates a difficult balancing act of trying to protect the shorelines while developing them for human use.
Lund said each local government defines the term “development,” and the Department of Ecology has to go along with the local governments’ definitions.
Bill Burrows, a former professor and representative for the residents of Harstine Island, said the area does not have enough public beaches to begin with, and restrictions should not be placed on the ones that are left.
“I’m not anti-shellfish,” he said. “But I think private business belongs on private property.”
Burrows said that, in the south sound, only 10 percent of remaining beaches are public, and the type of beaches that are optimal for geoduck farming are also preferred for human enjoyment.
“A lot of south sound beaches are rocky, covered with barnacles and not good for walking on,” he said. “The structure of the beaches that are consistent with geoduck farming are also the nice, sandy beaches people want to be on. And there just aren’t that many in the south sound.”
Bowers also expressed concern that the DNR was placing too much emphasis on generating revenue and not enough on conducting environmental studies on how geoduck farming affects the natural habitat, mainly in competing with indigenous forage fish, like the tiny surf smelts and sand lances, the main source of food for salmon.
During the public questioning portion of the meeting, a resident asked if geoducks eat the same food as fish. Dzinbal said geoducks are filter feeders and do not compete with the fish, because they mainly feed on phytoplankton.
Burrows said that there is a conflict in the food chain, since smaller organisms that feed on the phytoplankton do compete with the geoducks, and larger organisms depend on them, up to salmon, otters and orca whales.
Reeves said the geoducks were doing the environment a service by depleting the phytoplankton, because the phytoplankton depletes the water of oxygen when they decompose. He said it’s likely that the reason the Hood Canal has such low levels of oxygen is because it has an excess of phytoplankton.
Several residents touched upon the unsightliness of the byproducts of geoduck farming. The geoduck “seed,” which are tiny geoducks, are placed in PVC pipes set in rows in the sand. Nets are then placed either over a whole section of pipes, or over each pipe individually, then secured with a rubber band to prevent predators from eating the seed.
One resident asked if the DNR would compensate owners of beachfront properties for any loss of property value they may experience if geoduck farming was to occur in their “front yard.”
Lund said, “No.”
Most residents at the meeting were present with a goal of keeping the remaining public areas of the South Sound open for public use. Bowers told the crowd that if the state decides to harvest geoducks, it can put up “no trespassing” signs and completely disallow public access.
“This is the richest area in the world for geoducks,” he said. “Geoduck farming is a real money generator, but they want to farm on the public beach. And there’s just not enough of it left in the South Sound.”
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