Posted on 09 September 2014.
Now that the Shoreline Master Plan has been approved by the Department of Ecology, Bainbridge Island is open for offshore aquaculture, or fish and shellfish farming. The first and so far only applicant, a community shellfish farm project of the Puget Sound restoration Fund, was submitted and approved back in 2009 and subsequently received its conditional use permit. There has been no applicant since the recent passage of the SMP. What does this beginning signify for Bainbridge?
The Bainbridge Island Shoreline Master Plan, when submitted to the Department of Ecology for review earlier this year, contained the following text about aquaculture:
Prohibit aquaculture where it would result in a net loss of shoreline ecological functions; adversely affect the quality or extent of habitat for native species including eelgrass, kelp, and other macroalgae; adversely impact City and state critical habitat areas and other habitat conservation areas.
Ecology, whose stated mission is “to protect, preserve, and enhance Washington’s environment and to promote the wise management of our air, land, and water for the benefit of current and future generations,” asked that it be deleted, and it was. Why would an organization with such a mission want to delete the prohibition of an activity when and where it could harm the environment?
The answer lies partly in the Washington Shellfish Initiative, which was introduced by former Governor Christine Gregoire. The initiative is a merger of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Shellfish Initiative and the State’s “interest in promoting a critical clean water industry.” Aquaculture was described by the Initiative as a way to protect the health of the Sound and create jobs and revenue for the State.
Governor Inslee has echoed that view of aquaculture. In a response today to a request for comment, he said, about the potential for individually tailoring aquaculture to each community, “This is one reason our office is working to advance the goals of the Washington Shellfish Initiative. The initiative recognizes the importance of shellfish to Washington State—the economic benefits of a strong shellfish industry and the environmental benefits that come with responsible aquaculture. Improving water quality and addressing ocean acidification are two key parts of the Initiative.”
But the current reality doesn’t sound quite as good. Negative reports, some of which are being shared tonight with the Bainbridge City Council, have been emerging from the South Sound where shellfish farming companies conduct their fish farming operations on beachfront leased from property owners. Some of these property owners are voicing their concerns, and regrets, just in time for Bainbridge Islanders to determine if this is something we want here and what we want it to look like.
For example, the President of the Case Inlet Shoreline Association in Vaughn, Washington, alleges that “Washington Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has turned a blind eye while Taylor [Shellfish Farms] has been illegally farming on state owned land, a minimum of 16 acres in Totten Inlet, without a lease for over 10 years.”
The Association for the Protection of Hammersley, Eld and Totten Inlets, APHETI, monitors Aquaculture in the South Sound and maintains a website with an Inlet Watch page featuring the negative consequences of aquaculture.
The Coalition to Protect Puget Sound has strong words about the Shellfish Initiative: “Washington tidelands are under covert attack by the shellfish industry as they implement the industry created State Shellfish Initiative supported by Governor Inslee.”
The nonprofit Protect Our Shoreline supports “a requirement of peer reviewed science and environmental impact study evaluation prior to shellfish aquaculture.
What Is Offshore Aquaculture?
First, it’s important to understand the elements of open ocean or offshore aquaculture. Farmers build solid-frame cages or even floating, partly submerged netting systems offshore. The fish are raised inside.
For geoduck farming, PVC tubes are pushed into the sandy substrate of a beach’s intertidal zone. Four to five juvenile geoducks are planted in each one. Netting is placed over the tubes to prevent predation.
The farmers put up signage along the beach to prevent trespassing. Often, plastic fencing is used to keep people off the beach.
When the geoducks are well established, after a couple of seasons, the tubes are removed. After about five to seven years, when it’s time for harvesting, workers loosen the substrate around them with water shot from a high-pressure hose and nozzle.
What Are the Implications of Offshore Aquaculture?
A report prepared for the Pew Oceans Commission titled “Marine Aquaculture in the United States: Environmental Impacts and Policy Options” offers what seems to be a balanced and impartial analysis of the effects of this industry. The conclusion reached by the authors is that “Aquaculture has a number of economic and other benefits. But if it is done without adequate environmental safeguards it can cause environmental degradation.”
The report refers specifically to five potential dangers:
1. Biological Pollution. The report finds that “Fish that escape from aquaculture facilities may harm wild fish populations through competition and inter-breeding, or by spreading diseases and parasites. The authors added, “Historically, a number of diseases and parasites were introduced through aquaculture operations, and aquaculture can magnify the level of those diseases already present (NMFS/FWS, 2000). In the early 1900s, for example, the Japanese oyster drill and a predatory flatworm were introduced to the West Coast with the Pacific oyster, and at that time they contributed to the decline of native oyster stocks (Clugston, 1990).”
2. Fish for Fish Feeds. Because certain aquaculture uses wild-caught fish to feed farmed fish, the practice can actually contribute to the degradation of fish populations.
3. Organic Pollution. The report calls aquaculture’s contribution to nutrient loading in the oceans “small” but potentially “locally significant.” The pollution happens when fish wastes and uneaten feed is washed into the ocean from the cages or PVC tubes.
The authors report that “nutrient pollution, particularly nitrogen pollution, is a primary cause of environmental degradation in marine waters (NRC, 2000; Boesch et al., 2001).” They write that the adverse effects are “low dissolved oxygen levels, murky water, death of seagrasses and corals, fish kills, low- or no-oxygen ‘dead zones,’ and possibly harmful algal blooms (Boesch et al., 2001; EPA, 2001).”
They report that up to 70 percent of the phosphorus and 80 percent of the nitrogen fed to fish may be released into the water through organic wastes (Beveridge, 1996). What does that mean? The example they give is of a salmon farm of 200,000 fish, which “releases an amount of nitrogen, phosphorus, and fecal matter roughly equivalent to the nutrient waste in the untreated sewage from 20,000, 25,000, and 65,000 people, respectively (Hardy, 2000b).”
This is especially bad news for Puget Sound where, in 1997, “four of about twelve salmon netpens in Washington State discharged 93 percent of the amount of ‘total suspended solids’ into Puget Sound as the sewage treatment plant serving the city of Seattle (Whiteley, pers. comm.).”
Underneath the floating cages there can be dead zones surrounded by areas extending out 500 feet of decreased diversity (Beveridge, 1996).
4. Chemical Pollution. Antibiotics, parasiticides (parasite-killing drugs), pesticides, hormones, anesthetics, various pigments, minerals, and vitamins are all used in aquaculture. Farmers have been spraying Carbaryl, a pesticide, in Willapa Bay and Grays Harbor for years. The Environmental Protection Agency has registered imidacloprid for use on commercial shellfish beds in Willapa Bay and Grays Harbor for the control of burrowing shrimp. Imidacloprid is a neurotoxin banned in Germany, Italy, France, and Slovenia that has been linked to Colony Collapse Disorder among bees (see Honeybee disaster, April 2012 Sound Consumer).
The National Pesticide Information Center reports that
“farm workers reported skin or eye irritation, dizziness, breathlessness, confusion, or vomiting after they were exposed to pesticides containing imidacloprid. Pet owners have sometimes had skin irritation after they applied flea control products containing imidacloprid to their pets. Animals have vomited or drooled a lot after oral exposure to imidacloprid. If animals swallow enough imidacloprid, they may have trouble walking, develop tremors, and seem overly tired. Sometimes animals have skin reactions to pet products containing imidacloprid.”
Rescuers try to help an immature eagle stuck in a geoduck farming net.
5. Habitat Modification. One of the most obvious habitat effects of aquaculture is the entrapment of marine predators in the sea nets used by fish farming operations. Ironically, because it creates aggregations of fish, aquaculture attracts the predators that the nets are designed to discourage. In fact, the nets, although they prevent the predation, do not discourage predators and instead sometimes trap and suffocate them (Moore and Wieting, 1999; Wursig, 2001). The report says that cormorants and great blue herons are the animals most frequently killed (Rueggerberg and Booth, 1989).
Other predator discouragement techniques such as “seal bombs” and acoustic harassment or deterrent devices (Wursig, 2001) may “cause disorientation, pain, or hearing loss in marine species, including fish, sea turtles, and marine mammals (Hastings et al., 1996; NRDC, 1999). This noise pollution affects the surrounding marine habitat, causing other marine mammals that do not prey on farmed salmon (e.g., killer whales) to avoid the area (Morton and Symonds, in review).”
NOAA confirms the use of predator deterrents. In a report titled “Aquaculture and the Environment,” the agency reports that “The primary deterrent is the use of predator nets. These nets are hung outside of the net-pens and are made of a large, strong mesh that the predator cannot bite through. Bull rails (knee high fences developed by marine mammal biologists to keep sea lions off of docks) are also used to discourage marine mammals from getting onto net pen structures. In extreme cases an electric fence is added to the bull rails.”
Geoduck farm on Hartstine Island
Another habitat consideration is the addition of massive amounts of plastic to our oceans and beaches. An article published in 2012 in Sound Consumer (Washington Shellfish Initiative: Is It Sustainable?) cites the findings of the Case Inlet Shoreline Association (CISA) that the geoduck industry plants about eight miles of PVC plastic pipe per acre in Puget Sound intertidal habitat areas. Other plastic detritus associated with the farming often gets left behind on beaches.
The Washington Shellfish Initiative: Is It Sustainable? says that the high-volume hoses used to unearth the geoducks from the sand have the effect of “turning the beach upside down,” disturbing habitat.
Want to know what geoduck harvesting looks like? Click here for a slideshow put together by Protect Our Shoreline.org. Here is another one by the Case Inlet Shoreline Association.
What Are the Benefits of Offshore Aquaculture?
Proponents of aquaculture talk about the benefits to the Washington State economy, including taxes. But Washington Shellfish Initiative: Is It Sustainable? quotes Laura Hendricks, chair of Washington State’s Sierra Club Marine Ecosystem Campaign: “Since the shellfish industry pays little tax, boosting revenues to the state is unlikely. Increasing exports would be nice for the Governor but wouldn’t pay for all the government time the shellfish industry uses—or the natural resources.”
Oyster Harvesting in France
Proponents also tout the industry’s role in Puget Sound restoration by cleaning the water—the shellfish are said to clean the water because they are “filter feeders.” The article quotes CISA vice president Curt Puddicombe on this matter: “There is no scientific evidence that geoduck or mussel farming is good for the water and the marine environment in Puget Sound. The opposite is true. We know geoduck aquaculture results in plastic pollution.”
Research on aquaculture in the Pacific Northwest is limited but growing and some of it is taking a look at how to decrease the harmful effects of it. For example, a study completed through a collaboration of NOAA and the Pacific Shellfish Institute examined ways to mitigate the damage done to eelgrass via submerged shellfish depuration. The study reports that eelgrass “provides critical ecological functions such as removing nutrients and stabilizing fine sediments.” Because eelgrass is on the decline along the West Coast, finding ways to prevent further decline is essential. The research concluded that there is one change that can be made to help with the eelgrass problem: “Direct effects of cages are minimal during short-term gear soaks . . . ; longer term soaks have been shown to cause damage.”
Information like this will be essential to guiding aquaculture as the industry grows and expands throughout the Sound. But without the legislative clout of legislative restrictions intended to protect habitat, there will be no impetus to adopt improved processes backed by research.
The Rest of the Story
We contacted the Department of Ecology to ask why the agency wanted that paragraph deleted from the SMP. Barbara Nightingale, Shoreline Planner for the Department of Ecology, and Larry Aletose, Regional Spokesperson for the Agency, first wanted to stress that any applicants for aquaculture operations on the Island have to address three criteria: habitat, net loss, and cumulative effects. And these are delineated in the SMP.
The reason, Nightingale explained, for the deletion of the SMP paragraph is the use of the word Prohibit. She said, “We can’t prohibit it. It is a water-dependent preferred use according to the Shoreline Management Act.” But a specific applicant can be refused based on a number of criteria including location. Nightingale said, “You couldn’t do it on an eelgrass bed, for example.”
Governor Inslee’s Office expressed confidence in the SMP as it was finally accepted by Ecology: “The SMP is clear that priority habitats are to be protected. The language in the BI SMP was simply redundant” [before the paragraph was removed].
In response to the complaints emerging from the South Sound, Nightingale explained that the situation there differs from whatever would happen on Bainbridge in that the farms to the south were “grandfathered in” and “there are new rules now affecting new aquaculture operations.”
Aletose pointed out that applicants on Bainbridge would also need to meet Fish & Wildlife and Department of Natural Resources guidelines. And Department of Ecology personnel would be required to conduct a site visit before issuing any permits.
When asked about people’s ability to walk the beach at low tide when a geoduck farm is in the way, Nightingale pointed out that public beaches could not be farmed. But what happens to low-tide beach beyond the extent of a person’s property has to be established by the City’s CUP requirements.
When asked if a geoduck farm would be allowed to have nets over its PVC tubes if those nets were trapping juvenile eagles, Nightingale said no, that would be considered a net loss. However, she again emphasized what goes into the the CUP: The rule about nets and animals would first have to be written into the City’s Conditional Use Permit.
She added about Bainbridge Islanders, “From what I’ve seen from people who have voiced concerns, these are very intelligent people. I’d like to see them work with the City to determine criteria for the Conditional Use Permit to help the CUP be more effective, to assist in implementing aquaculture and working out the details.”
The Governor’s Office also echoed Nightingale’s advice about citizen involvement in the development of BI Conditional Use language: “Each shoreline program is tailored to a town, city, or county’s needs. The governor supports an approach that takes into account those individual needs and differences.”
However, Ecology has already removed some aquaculture-specific regulations from the SMP, such as the requirement that “aquacultural developments approved on an experimental basis shall not exceed five (5) acres in area, except anchorage for floating systems, and five (5) years in duration.” Also removed was language stating that “Aquacultural proposals that include net-pens or rafts shall not be located closer than one (1) nautical mile to any other aquacultural facility that includes net-pens or rafts.” Ecology also removed language requiring community aquaculture gardens to be “no greater than 400 square feet in area.”
Even if an applicant is issued a Conditional Use Permit, there is no guarantee that he or she will get permission from a property owner to lease the land. And that’s where education comes in—people need to learn specifically what they would be getting into before agreeing to a land lease.
Here is a video on local aquaculture from the Coalition to Protect Puget Sound:
Photos by Jeff Lawdawg1, Allan Hughes, eutrophication&hypoxia, and the USDA.