Protect Our Shoreline

Member of the Coalition to Protect Puget Sound Habitat
Henderson Bay Shoreline Association APHETI
Mayo Cove Shoreline Association Case Inlet Shoreline Association
Canadian partners: Association for Responsible Shellfish Farming

Mission: To protect the habitat of Puget Sound tidelands in relation to expansion of new intensive shellfish aquaculture methods and practices. Shellfish aquaculture is converting beaches to agricultural use without shoreline permits, public comment or environmental review.

We share all Puget Sound Partnership goals. We support a requirement of peer reviewed science and environmental impact study evaluation prior to shellfish aquaculture expansion.

How did this all start? Geoducks: Viagra on the Half Shell

Powerpoint: shellfish aquaculture concerns in South Puget Sound.

Cashing in on Geoducks

130+ citizens from Harstine and Stretch Islands speak out about DNR leasing public beaches for commercial geoduck farming.

Harstine citizens speak out on DNR leasing

DNR income from aquatic leasing

Presentation Question and Answer

"The cumulative impact of multiple environmental changes is one of the primary issues of concern with an increasing quantity and intensity of shellfish farming." --Sustainable Shellfish, David Suzuki Foundation.

Shellfish Aquaculture Regulatory Committee

HB 2220 was signed by the Governor on April 27, 2007. Patrick Townsend, President of Protect Our Shoreline, has been appointed as a member of the committee with Laura Hendricks, President of Henderson Bay Shoreline Association as the alternate.

The Shellfish Aquaculture Regulatory Committee website posts meeting agendas, minutes and documenation.

Public comments can be made on the Shellfish Aquaculture Regulatory Committee Public Listserv.


Silt covered geoduck net on Totten Inlet tideland.	Juvenile Bald Eagle caught in geoduck net.

Shellfish Industry and DNR Goals

The Department of Natural Resources and the shellfish industry are collaborating on expansion of shellfish aquaculture, and in particular, geoduck farms, on our sensitive tidelands. See

Overview maps of 2006 lease sites.

Maps of 2006 lease sites.

Overview of 2007 lease sites.

maps of 2007 lease sites.

According to DNR staff, no leases have yet been signed because of the permit process.

Important Reading

Washington’s Shoreline Management Act (SMA) was adopted by the public in a 1972 referendum “to prevent the inherent harm in an uncoordinated and piecemeal development of the state’s shorelines.”

People for Puget Sound Intertidal Geoduck Farming Policy.

List of studies on the impacts of intensive shellfish farming from France, China, Ireland, New Zealand, Japan, Italy.

Pierce County Hearings Examiner rules against Taylor Shellfish a substantial shoreline development permit is required for the Foss geoduck farm and the current permit has expired.

Pacific Shellfish Institute West Coast Shellfish Research and Education 2015 Goals and Priorities.

Click on any photo to enlarge


As the geoduck farms proliferate, we run the danger of the tidelands of Puget Sound...	...turning into this.

So what's wrong with this picture?

The shellfish industry says this is good for Puget Sound and the more, the better: "We believe the environmental impacts are at worse benign, and at best they're beneficial." --Diane Cooper, environmental policy manage, Taylor Shellfish. Seattle Times, 10/5/06.

Please join with us in urging local and state government to place a moratorium on commercial farming of geoducks on leased private tidelands until an independent programmatic environmental impact study on the intertidal/nearshore zone can be done.

"If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt, we must leave them more than the miracles of technology. We must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning, not just after we got through with it." (Lyndon B. Johnson)