These photos and shellfish industry comments demonstrate the foul and vile obscenity that is perpetrated on Puget Sound's nearshore habitat by the incredible arrogance and unmitigated greed of the shellfish industry.  Beach residents, including some families that have been here for 70-100 plus years, are treated with contempt and disrespect.  No environmental impact statements have been done.  No studies on possible impacts to forage fish and salmon habitat have been initiated.  In fact, the shellfish industry lobbies long and hard for even fewer regulations! 
CISA comments in red.

  (below) Taylor Shellfish Farms, Foss site, Case Inlet.  Click on photos to enlarge.

 

"To some waterfront property owners this is not an attractive view. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder. To growers, this is attractive."
Bill Dewey of Taylor Shellfish Farms

"These geoduck farms are a nasty blight on our pristine tidelands.  To say it looks good to someone that stands to make millions of dollars: it's like saying a clear cut looks good, or a strip mine looks good."
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(below) bald eagle is rescued by boaters after being trapped in a Harstene Island, Case Inlet, geoduck net. 

 "We believe the environmental impacts are at worst benign, and at best they're beneficial"
 Diane Cooper of Taylor Shellfish.

(below) exhausted eagle after being freed from geoduck predator exclusion nets.  

 

"There is no science to support the case that geoduck farming is harmful to the environment"
Jim Gibbons of Seattle Shellfish

"The reality is that there is more current data which suggests that geoduck farming IS harmful to the environment."

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"Private tidelands are misrepresented as residential and recreational beaches.  (Pierce County) must recognize that the primary purpose of privately held tidelands is shellfish farming, and not residential recreation."
  Peter Downey of the Pacific Coast Shellfish Growers Association

"The scene was different ten years ago."  "The NIMBY phenomenon was localized and only beginning to rear its ugly head."
Robin Downey of the Pacific Coase Shellfish Growers Association

"Ten years ago, the shellfish industry wasn't as rapaciously hellbent on taking over Puget Sound's tidelands.  With the rising price of geoduck, so comes the avidity.  The 'ugly head' belongs to the shellfish industry, not to this community."
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"Shellfish farming provides a supportive environment for other species"
Peter Downey of the Pacific Coast Shellfish Growers Association
 

"(Shellfish farming) has been shown to provide equal or better habitat than eelgrass for juvenile Dungeness crab."
Pacific Coast Shellfish Growers Association. 

"...vocal NIMBY opposition groups that like to ask questions implying that there might be damage to the environment resulting from geoduck harvesting without having ANY science to back up their implied claims."
Jim Gibbons of Seattle Shellfish

"Try to remember that if it were not for those mussel farms in Totten Inlet, those geoduck farms slowly spreading throughout South Puget Sound, or all those oyster and Manila clam farms in both Inlets, Puget Sound's waters wouldn't be as clean. While you're at it, you might consider showing your appreciation for what the shellfish industry is doing for Puget Sound by buying some locally produced shellfish."
 Jim Gibbons of Seattle Shellfish

  


“These are lifestyle changes that have to happen for the whole population. We have to go to everyone in Puget Sound watershed and get them to change their lives.”
Bill Dewey of Taylor Shellfish



“I don’t go to my neighbors and tell them what they can do with their property.”
John Lentz of Chelsea Farms

"The idea that people can do whatever they want with their property, it's ridiculus!  These people must be living in a time warp.  I can't drill for oil on my tidelands, or dump my sewage out there."  "There's a demonstrable lack of respect for the community."




Geoduck photo from WDFW


Taylor Shellfish HVLP stinger pump barge, North Bay, 2008


Taylor Shellfish, North Bay, geoduck harvest, July, 2008


Taylor Shellfish, North Bay, July, 2008


Taylor Shellfish, North Bay, HVLP pump barge, July, 2008


Taylor Shellfish, North Bay, barge loaded with plastic PVC tubes for geoduck, July, 2008


Seattle Shellfish, Spenser Cove, unnatural densities of geoduck in the intertidal, PVC debris, July, 2008