Shellfish hearing overflows chambers

If you didn't show up early, it was hard to find a seat for the public hearing Aug. 9 as people showed up to tell Taylor Shellfish how they feel about a proposed floating oyster bag farm in Oakland Bay.

About 100 people were either in the Mason County Commissioner Chambers or just outside the room watching the hearing on a TV broadcast by MasonWebTV.

The hearing lasted four hours until the county had to close its doors at 5 p.m., and the hearing continued virtually Aug. 16 to allow anyone else who didn't get an opportunity to testify the chance to do so.

Mason County Hearing Examiner Phil Olbrechts said he has been doing this work for more than 30 years and this was the biggest crowd he's seen since the Ridge Motorsports hearing.

"One misconception I want to address here and I think most of you understand how this works. They call this a quasi-judicial proceeding, it's more like a courtroom then it is when you're addressing your county commissioners or something like that," Olbrechts said to begin the hearing. "If you were to go to a murder trial, you wouldn't tell the judge I vote that this person be convicted. It's not a democratic process, it's a legal one and it's the same one we have here today. I saw a lot of comments like I vote against this project, that's not what matters for the courts or what legally matters for me. What matters is whether or not this meets the criteria in the code. I think the good news is that the code for shoreline permits is really detailed, it covers just about every impact you can think of, not property values specifically, maybe that's the thing that's out there, but everything that affects property values is in there. ... just about anything you're concerned about is relevant to whether or not this project should be approved."

Mason County planner Luke Viscusi stepped up to the podium first to present his report on the Shoreline Substantial Development permit Taylor Shellfish applied for to put the floating oyster bag farm in Oakland Bay.

Viscusi said the project will be 1,000 feet from all shorelines and will be on state Department of Natural Resources land within Oakland Bay. The lease application to DNR is for 10 years, and the lease is dependent upon Taylor Shellfish receiving the permit from all other necessary government entities, including Mason County.

At full installation, the project is anticipated to cover 9.1 acres of surface water within a 50-acre project boundary for floating aquaculture gear. It will render the 9.1 acres inaccessible due to the gear. Taylor Shellfish has proposed to grant the public 16.6 acres of tidelands and work with Oakland Bay marina to aid with improvements to the boat launch and related facilities.

Staff recommends the permit be approved with conditions.

Erin Ewald, director of regulatory affairs for Taylor Shellfish, gave a presentation to the hearing examiner about the project. She said the buildout of the project is expected to take two to three years and that the double lines of bags are positioned about 30 feet apart to allow boat access for maintenance. The system is designed to flex with the current but not to extend beyond the lease boundary.

Up to 20 concrete wedge anchors and 30 screw anchors will be installed to keep the project in place, according to Ewald. Once installed, the anchors will remain stationary. Once the lease expires, the anchors will be removed. She said Taylor Shellfish has been farming in Oakland Bay since the late 1960s.

While the surface area footprint is 9.1 acres, actual production area is about 4.25 acres, with 30,000 bags distributed along up to 30 double lines, according to Ewald.

"Current aquaculture farms are seed limited. The ability to grow and hold a larger variety and life stage of oysters within approved growing areas is paramount to the future of the industry as growers work to cultivate oysters in a changing environment, evolving markets and increased regulations," Ewald explained during the hearing. "The floating bags would improve oyster survivability from the nearby FLUPSY (floating upweller system). Expanded surface area provides oysters with more consistent food and space to grow. Time in the bags would vary between a few weeks to two years. The system is expected to be used for holding and maturing seed, however, depending on hatchery success, available bags may be used to grow out oysters to market size. Increasing the ability to grow, store and apply the seed available for out-planting is critical to the future of aquaculture in Mason County."

Ana Andres, a Taylor Shellfish worker for 11 years and who leads a current oyster bag farm at Chapman Cove near Oakland Bay, spoke at the hearing. She started working on the oyster bag farm about five years ago. She said she mostly sees work motorboats from the tribe, a mussel farm or other growers, and she said she sees one recreational motorboat a week and they tend to spend less than an hour in the water. She said she doesn't see many recreational boaters in the winter.

"Recreation in Oakland Bay has always been light. I don't see the farm interfering with recreation. If anything, having the farm and crews out on the water has been very helpful," Andres said during the hearing. "As recreational users enjoy visiting the site and learning about aquaculture activities. In the summer, we mostly see kayakers. Last summer, we had a kayaker who wasn't familiar with the bay and he was flipped out of his boat by the waves. Me and my crew were out there, keeping an eye on him. When he fell in the water, we went out and brought him back to shore."

Chris Cziesla, CEO and senior principal marine and fisheries biologist at Confluence Environmental Co., an environmental consulting firm out of Seattle, gave a presentation. He spoke about the visual effects of the project, saying they are low-profile structures in the water. Cziesla also talked about shellfish's ability to filter water, showing a 15-minute time-lapse video of how shellfish can clean water.

"That feeding has a couple of environmental benefits. One, improved water clarity. Two, in terms phytoplankton blooms, through that grazing, it often modulates blooms so you don't get into that situation where you have big blooms and big bloom die-offs, which lead to some of the negative consequences with oxygen use and dead zones," Cziesla said during the hearing. "This regular feeding from the shellfish is a net benefit in terms of modulating that boom, bust cycle that phytoplankton can go through, especially as we have excess nutrient inputs from our various upland activities, leading to much higher concentrations than might have been here historically for plankton."

Cziesla said entanglements can be an issue, but those usually occur in traps with loose line in crab pots, and he said there is no loose line in the proposed project. He said there are extremely limited occurrences of entanglement with aquaculture gear. Worldwide since 1982, there have been a total of 19 entanglements with aquaculture gear, associated with mussel culture in New Zealand.

Following Taylor Shellfish's presentation, the public was allowed to step up to the microphone and the comments were mostly against the project. Elizabeth Fluke said she moved to Shelton when she came to Washington as a nurse because of the peaceful setting. She said Cziesla didn't mention the stress that she said the project would subject humans to.

"People are vulnerable to stress and this is an environmental stress," Fluke said. "When I went outside the first night I lived here, you could see all the stars. If you put in this operation and they say they're not going to do it at night, but they're going to have lights for the Coast Guard, and they'll probably have lights for security, that's light pollution, you won't see the stars anymore," Fluke said during the hearing. "I don't know what the purpose of this is because it doesn't sound like you're going to have a big tax base. I have a tiny little piece of property across the street from the water and I get charged for that view, over $500 a month and it keeps going up every year. I'm on a fixed income. As soon as I started living here, I reached out to find out what our invasive species (are), be a good neighbor, try to take out those things that are invasive, plant the native plants. You want to have good neighbors planting good plants. I don't know if this is going to help pay the property taxes. It doesn't sound like it because it's the water so I don't know how that works. I don't know if it's going to decrease our property taxes, but we pay a lot of money to have that beautiful view."

David Douglas, who lives on Sunset Road and has been an industrial real estate broker since 1979, said there is a conflict with the Mason County Residential Rural 5 zoning, which is adjacent on both sides of the bay. He also said the project will have a negative effect on Mason County property taxes.

Ginny Douglas, wife of David, wanted to know "the truth" of what the aquaculture site is going to look like.

"Living on the bay, we often see Taylor boats going weekends and nights, so I don't think that you were being truthful in ensuring that information," Ginny Douglas said during the hearing. "We are here with probably a handful of others who, in my opinion, are unique, in that we are currently being held hostage by the greed of Taylor Shellfish company. However, that may soon change if we are forced to accept an industrial oyster growing complex and production complex being inserted into Oakland Bay. Unless Mason County, the Squaxin Island Tribe, Oakland Bay Marina and a handful of state agencies, we are here solely to advocate for the future of Oakland Bay and its fragile ecosystem that has clearly been ravaged by industry over the decades and with full transparency, to protect the value of our property. ... Taylor's offer of mitigation is laughable, and honestly, insulting. Let's make it clear, anyone who believes Taylor Shellfish is being generous in its offer of access to 16.169 acres of mudflats, some of which is accessible only by descending a rope in exchange for their limitless use of 50 acres of prime waterway owned by the people of the state of Washington can only be misguided in their expectation of fair play."

Christin Herinckx, who has a residence on Oakland Bay, said she disagreed with the marine biologist about the shellfish cleaning the water. She said the scale is the problem.

"This has been historically a ZIP Code where industries take advantage of the general populace and this is No. 2 for the entire state of Washington for cancer, all cancer occurrence, per capita, and yet we are 20th in terms of population density," Herinckx said during the hearing. "I don't think that that is a coincidence at all. So now we are talking about further raping and pillaging of the bay again. ... Mason County is poised to prostitute Oakland Bay on the altar of greed. Why? By Taylor's admission, they will assign existing workers to this or only a few. The only entity Taylor Shellfish's plan benefits is Taylor Shellfish."

The public comment was 30-7 negative versus positive comments about the proposed project. Angeline Elguero-Mateo started off her comments by asking whether she looked like the people in here, before talking about her mom working for Taylor Shellfish. She said her dad is undocumented and worked for Taylor Shellfish, but does not anymore.

"Because of the employment and opportunities that my family has been given through Taylor Shellfish ... I've been able to grow and prosper in Mason County. I think one thing that's really disappointing is to say that this is all coming from a side of privilege," Elguero-Mateo said during the hearing. "I did not go through that so going out and paddleboarding or kayaking, going on a boat was never something I could do until the last two years through my sister and my friends. Growing up as a first-generation college student, first one to be in college out of my five siblings, now my two younger siblings are pursuing that. Taylor Shellfish has really given that employment and like my sister said, she's the lead right now, in the cove. I actually had the opportunity to work this summer with Taylor, hopefully getting my first car, because I work those four to five hours, in the early mornings."

Elguero-Mateo is a junior at Gonzaga University in Spokane and she asked people at the hearing to take into consideration the people who are out there and the opportunities it provides to people who don't have the same advantages. Toward the end of her comments, she mentioned the beauty of Oakland Bay, to which a man in the room shouted, "We want it to stay beautiful."

David Epps, who lives on Harstine Island, said he hopes the project is approved. Epps said he works for Seattle Shellfish and he has his own small shellfish farm. He said he is trying to expand it through the Army Corps and the state Department of Ecology to include oysters and Manila clams.

"One of the biggest problems they have relayed to me during the process was not to waste my money because there isn't enough seed and the seed that you can get is too small to actually grow sustainably in the environment," Epps said during the hearing. "So I would like to reiterate comments and how important this is to the local economies as well as how important it is, having seed supply is a critical factor to a lot of small farms that are on the verge of being sustainable and increasing jobs from that type of perspective as well."

Following the hearing Aug. 16, Olbrechts will have 10 business days to issue a decision. To view the Aug. 9 hearing in full, watch MasonWebTV's broadcast at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUCNUROZ08o.

Author Bio

Matt Baide, Reporter

Shelton-Mason County Journal & Belfair Herald
Email: matt@masoncounty.com

• Email: matt@masoncounty.com