Trio of public meetings to decide fate of Washington geoduck farm

Local government bodies will host a series of public meetings later this month to determine the future of a 25.5-acre geoduck farm the Taylor Shellfish Company plans to establish in the U.S. state of Washington.

The company currently raises clams and oysters on that same plot in Burley Lagoon in Pierce County, Washington, a Puget Sound estuary that is home to 300 acres of shellfish aquaculture farming. Taylor Shellfish Company first applied to convert its current its operations to highly lucrative geoduck farming nearly a decade ago, but it has been met with fierce resistance from some residents and environmental groups.

Local environmental groups, such as the Tahoma Audubon Society, have voiced opposition to expanding geoduck farming in the area, arguing that the 25.5-acre proposal “will contribute significantly to the continuing decline in eelgrass, forage fish, and salmon runs.”

Local opposition is not limited to environmental concerns. Unlike oyster farming, geoduck farming has a more industrial aesthetic. The six-year geoduck grow cycle requires plastic piping to be placed in the mud to house the animals, with mesh netting thrown over the top to keep out predators. There are already other geoduck farms in Pierce County, but this would be the largest.

However, the geoduck farm proposal landed a clear victory earlier this year, when Pierce County issued its final environmental impact statement (FEIS) stating the conversion to geoduck farming “would not represent a significant change in terms of effects on biological resources or ecological functions.”

“This has been a long and extensive process. The company and the county mutually agreed to prepare an [environmental impact statement] in 2016 so that the project would receive the highest level of environmental analysis and public participation,” Taylor Shellfish Company Director of Public Affairs Bill Dewey told SeafoodSource. “The FEIS is one of the most robust assessments on geoduck culture developed to date.”

Several of the groups opposed to the project have formally appealed the FEIS.

“While the FEIS has been appealed, we are confident it will stand,” Dewey said. “It is an incredibly comprehensive review. With that level of environmental review, we are also very hopeful that the hearing examiner will agree with the findings and issue the permit.”

With the county’s environmental assessment complete, two local bodies – Key Peninsula Land Use Advisory Commission and the Gig Harbor Peninsula Land Use Advisory Commission – will host three public meetings this month to determine their recommendation on the proposal to the county hearings examiner. The examiner will hold another public hearing later this year before deciding whether to issue the permit. After that, the Washington Department of Ecology will weigh in on the proposal.

It took six years for the FEIS to be completed.

“I spent the past couple of days driving over to Pullman in Eastern Washington and back,” Dewey said. “While there I got out to tour a wheat farm using some cutting-edge sustainable farming techniques. It was awesome and I was envious of their freedom to try innovations on their farm. I could only imagine the chaos that would occur it someone told the farmers in Eastern Washington that they would need to take six years to complete an EIS and go through multiple public hearings to see if they could get a permit to grow a different crop on their land. Pretty amazing the different standards aquatic farms are held to compared to terrestrial farms.”

Taylor Shellfish Company had trouble with state authorities with another geoduck farm more than a decade ago. In 2009, the company sued the Washington Department of Natural Resources after the government backed out of a previously negotiated lease for a geoduck farm on state lands. In that incident, a state survey found that the company was inadvertently growing geoduck on state lands, but the company came to an agreement with the Washington Public Lands Commissioner to cede claims to the land and pay back rent in exchange for a five-year lease that would allow them to harvest the shellfish already planted. However, the deal was reached on the very last day of the commissioner’s term in office, and his successor refused to sign the new deal.

The state settled with the company later that year, allowing Taylor Shellfish Company to harvest the 300,000 geoducks in the area as well as oysters, but no future lease was granted. In return, Taylor Shellfish company paid the state USD 1.5 million (EUR 1.1 million).

Photo courtesy of Taylor Shellfish