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 An oyster boat on Hood Canal. nutrients flowing into the canal
encourage the growth of phytoplankton, which the shellfish gobble up.
What we want to do is take them back out. And one of the best ways to
do that is by harvesting shellfish.
I’m having breakfast at the Little Creek Casino near Shelton
with Bob Simmons, Emily Piper, and Duane Fagergren. Like Simmons,
Piper is a water-resource educator with Washington State University
Extension. Fagergren is the director of special programs for the
Puget Sound Action Team, an organization connected to the
governor’s office that coordinates research and education
activities having to do with the health of Puget Sound. He is also
a small-scale shellfish grower.
Fagergren is talking about the relationship between shellfish
and water quality. And of Justin Taylor, the patriarch and founder
of Taylor Shellfish, the biggest shellfish grower in the state.
“One of [his] theories is that because we have not relied on
Hood Canal producing and harvesting wild set oysters, a lot of
oysters just stay on the beach and are never harvested out of the
system. That’s where you get the benefit of natural
filtration.”
“So we take it out of the system and eat it?” I pause briefly
over my plate of oysters and eggs. Which, by the way, are very
good. Even though I don’t gamble, I’ve enjoyed my stay at the
casino, eating oysters every meal so far. But now I can’t help but
wonder what they’ve been eating.
Everyone nods, pleased that I’m getting it. They’re not eating
oysters, for some reason. But Simmons reassures me: “So it doesn’t
turn into nitrogenous waste.” What he means is the non-toxic (to
me, the oyster eater) nutrients. (The Department of Health is quite
careful about keeping toxic bacteria from reaching my plate.)
Generally the way it works is, nutrients flowing into the Hood
Canal encourage the growth of phytoplankton, which the shellfish
gobble up. What we want to do, I’m realizing, is, if we can’t keep
the nutrients from flowing into the canal, then we’re just going to
have to take them back out. And one of the best ways to do that is
by harvesting shellfish. And that means, I realize virtuously, I
need to do my part and eat more shellfish.
Obviously, increased gastronomic possibilities are only a part
of the needed solution. Everything involved would be better off if
some of that nutrient flow were slowed. In fact, even from the
perspective of shellfish, the health of Puget Sound and Hood Canal
is a conundrum. Yes, their filtration powers are impressive.
Shellfish can remove nearly 17 grams of nitrogen from estuaries for
every kilogram of shellfish meat harvested.
But the water has to be sufficiently free of toxicity to support
them and other life in the Puget Sound waters. What are you going
to do with millions of harvested shellfish if you can’t eat them,
store them on the Hanford Reservation?
The effort to remedy the Sound’s afflictions has been taken on
by a myriad of organizations, both public and nonprofit.
Coordination is kind of organic, says Fagergren. “There’s so much
to do, and we know the strengths of each other. As long as somebody
doesn’t claim overall leadership, I think we’re far better
off.”
Much of that coordination, however, is through the Puget Sound
Action Team. Under its broad umbrella are many nonprofit and
government groups, including UW Sea Grant, the maritime version of
the land-grant system. And of course Extension. Most of the Puget
Sound counties have water-resource educators like Simmons and
Piper.
“I think it’s great having both major university systems working
on the same problem,” says Fagergren, “and doing what each of them
does best.”
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Continued
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 Matt Hagen
by Tim Steury
Let’s suppose we all start eating more shellfish in the
interest of saving Puget Sound. The question that arises
immediately is, “What wine shall we drink with them?” I picked up
some shucked Kumomoto oysters and smoked oysters at the Taylor
Shellfish retail store in Shelton and headed up to Hoodsport to get
some advice.
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