Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumGoodbye Fish and Shellfish? Meet the Biggest Threat to Our Oceans
http://www.alternet.org/water/155567/goodbye_fish_and_shellfish_meet_the_biggest_threat_to_our_oceans/_640x424_310x220
On most days, Bill Dewey can be found wearing waist-high waders and inspecting Manila clamsthe West Coast version of the littleneckat his Washington clam farm, Chuckanut Shellfish. Under an arrangement thats unique to the state, Dewey owns 32 acres of tidelands. Unlike land-based farms, he can only harvest when the tide recedes, leaving over a mile of mudflats, and shellfish, exposed. He gathers the clams with the help of a former tulip-bulb harvesting machine thats carried out aboard his boat, the Clamdango!
Working on the mudflats, often with his son and dog in tow, is the fulfillment of a dream for Dewey, a shellfish farmer for more than 30 years who is also the public policy and communications director for Taylor Shellfish Company. Taylors operationswhich include growing oysters, clams, mussels and geoduck (giant clams whose necks can reach more than three feet long)span some 1,900 acres of the same tidelands. All told, there are about 47,000 acres of oceanic land that have that special designation in the state, and, he says, Its fundamental as to why Washington leads the country in farmed shellfish production. In other parts of country, you typically have to lease the land from the state. Banks are less apt to loan money to businesses that have to lease.
Commercial shellfishing makes up the lions sharetwo-thirdsof the nations aquaculture industry. So reports the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations (NOAAs) Fisheries Service which makes a case for boosting domestic seafood production, noting that Americans eat a lot of seafood, and import 86% of it, creating a U.S. seafood trade deficit that now exceeds $10.4 billion annually, second only to oil when it comes to natural resources. In the Pacific Northwest, the shellfish industry contributes $270 million per year to the regional economy and employs more than 3,200 people. And when oyster cultivation fails at the top Northwest hatcheries and farms, the effects on the industry are devastating.
bahrbearian
(13,466 posts)Don't forget the radioactive shell fish in Willapa Bay
I used to eat shell fish from there all the time. We'd go out there every winter, not anymore.
Radioactive oysters in Willapa Bay, WA
During the 1950's and 1960's, radioactivity from Hanford was found at high concentrations in shellfish in Willapa Bay at the mouth of the Columbia which extended for at least 200 miles into the Pacific Ocean. Beginning in 1959, zinc-59 levels in the oysters at Willapa Bay were being monitored. At that time, levels of zinc-65, a radioactive byproduct of plutonium production, in Pacific coast oysters were 300 times greater oysters from Japanese and Atlantic waters. In the 1960's a Hanford employee set off radiation alarms when he entered the Hanford Site. Upon investigation it was determined that he had become radioactive from eating a can of oyster stew that contained oysters harvested from Willapa Bay.
http://toxipedia.org/display/wanmec/Radioactive+oysters...
i just hate news like this -- i love oysters, clams, etc -- it's such a good industry with historical roots.
so very sad.
Viva_La_Revolution
(28,791 posts)Even if you're sure it's labeled right, and caught fairly, that's still one less fish in the ocean.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)Catching wild fish depletes the ocean biome, while open-water acquaculture contaminates the surrounding water and thus threatens other species.
Aquaculture in inland tanks is probably OK from an ecological perspective, but not everybody wants to just eat tilapia and catfish...
XemaSab
(60,212 posts)Not to overstate it, but
:puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke:
broiles
(1,367 posts)Laurabeach1
(2 posts)If the Washington shellfish industry is so worried about their future, why are they then demanding that Japanese eelgrass be eradicated by spraying Imazamox in Willapa Bay, Grays Harbor and Puget Sound? The importance of seagrasses to sequester carbon have been highlighted and scientists in Washington State have opposed this eradication, but the shellfish industry has demanded that the Department of Ecology continue to move forward on a spray permit. Not only does the eradication of Japanese eelgrass threaten the food source for masses of migrating birds and would eliminate documented herring spawning medium, but native eelgrass will also be at risk as it grows in close proximity.
It is even more of a concern that shellfish industry tried to avoid their name being connected with their demand to eradicate Japanese eelgrass by not wanting it to be handled by legislation. So instead, Bill Dewey (Taylor Shellfish Corporate lobbyist) drafted the letter for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to quietly sign that was then sent to Representative Brian Blake that dropped the Japanese eelgrass protection and then the shellfish industry quickly applied for spray permits. The shellfish industry's tactics denied other stakeholders the right of a public process and public hearings so all of the science could be fairly examined and all of the impacts could be openly discussed.
In order to accurately determine the true impacts on non native Pacific oysters of ocean acidification, it should also be pointed out that the shellfish industry aerially sprays tons of Carbaryl and high volumes of Glyphosate and Imazapyr in Willapa Bay and Grays Harbor to eradicate native ghost/mud shrimp and Spartina. The genetic fitness of these genetically altered oysters along with chemical stressors should be factored into this discussion. Saving native species should be our primary goal.
Taxpayers deserve all of the facts to be on the table since it is our money funding this research. We need to protect all of the natural aquatic species that provide an important function for an ecosystem that is already in trouble.
Gregorian
(23,867 posts)It is the bottom line for all of the ecological problems we're facing. Yet every discussion stops just short of addressing it. We think we can engineer our way out of it. We can't. There's nothing wrong with living a modern lifestyle. Just not in these numbers. And we had better hurry up and realize this.
pscot
(21,024 posts)Great voice! Do you do this professionally? How do we get in touch with you?
pscot
(21,024 posts)and if you search on Youtube, he has many videos up.
Nativeone
(3 posts)<iframe width="420" height="315" src="
" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>bahrbearian
(13,466 posts)Nativeone
(3 posts)You can find beaches like the ones in the video all over Puget Sound. Totten Inlet is filthy with views like this (join the boat tour on June 3rd from Carlyon Beach starting at 10am) or just visit any of the several inlets in the Sound to see similar pictures. Roughly 92% of Totten Inlet is in this state of existence but the other beaches are catching up in wicked ways.
This may be of interest to you as well:
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="
Nativeone
(3 posts)If this doesn't wake someone up, nothing will.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="