Ban geoduck farms until the science is in
WILLIAM BURROWS; Shelton
The Puget Sound Partnership just released its draft cleanup plan. It will ask the Legislature for $200 million to $300 million in new Puget Sound money in the 2009-11 budget.
One of the first goals is to “finance the rapid acquisition of prime habitat in the Puget Sound area and continue to repair the degraded shorelines, wetlands and estuaries that are causing the ecosystem to unravel, sending more than 40 major species into decline.”
The total cost to fix Puget Sound is estimated at $2 billion to $3 billion over the next 10 years; fixing mistakes is a very expensive proposition.
The state Department of Ecology is about to make recommendations to the Legislature regarding geoduck aquaculture. However, according to Ted Williams, who wrote an article on geoduck aquaculture in the Nov./Dec. 2008 issue of Audubon Magazine, it looks like we are about to continue with the century’s old practice of permitting an activity without really understanding it. Williams writes:
“Rather than taking British Columbia’s precautionary approach of waiting to see if intertidal geoduck farming is safe before committing to it, Washington will wait to see if it’s destructive before stopping it.”
I hope the Department of Ecology will have the political will to do the right thing and recommend to the Legislature and counties that geoduck aquaculture not be permitted in Puget Sound until the practice has been shown by science to not be harmful.
