Department of Ecology, oyster growers cancel plans to spray neurotoxin in Willapa Bay

Hal­lelu­jah! Via a news release sent by the Depart­ment of Ecol­o­gy:

Fol­low­ing dis­cus­sions over the week­end, the Depart­ment of Ecol­o­gy and the Willa­pa-Grays Har­bor Oys­ter Grow­ers Asso­ci­a­tion (WGHOGA) have agreed to can­cel a recent­ly issued per­mit for use of imi­da­clo­prid to con­trol bur­row­ing shrimp.

“One of our agency’s goals is to reduce tox­i­cs in our envi­ron­ment,” said Ecol­o­gy Direc­tor Maia Bel­lon. “We’ve heard loud and clear from peo­ple across Wash­ing­ton that this per­mit didn’t meet their expec­ta­tions, and we respect the grow­ers’ response.”

The per­mit came at the request of WGHOGA for an alter­na­tive to car­baryl, a pes­ti­cide used since the 1960s. The per­mit placed strict usage rules on a new U.S. EPA approved reg­is­tra­tion of imi­da­clo­prid, a com­mon­ly used pes­ti­cide, to con­trol the pop­u­la­tion of bur­row­ing shrimp in Willa­pa Bay and Grays Harbor.

The shrimp bur­row into shell­fish beds, mak­ing the ground too soft for oys­ters, caus­ing them to suffocate.

“We believe we have no choice but to with­draw our per­mit and address these issues to the sat­is­fac­tion of our cus­tomer base, and the pub­lic,” said Don Gillies, pres­i­dent of the WGHOGA, in the let­ter request­ing with­draw­al of the permit.

The WGHOGA sub­mit­ted the let­ter with­draw­ing their appli­ca­tion for the per­mit on Sun­day, May 3. Ecol­o­gy staff will now com­plete the paper­work to can­cel the per­mit on Mon­day, May 4.

The can­cel­la­tion of this per­mit is a huge vic­to­ry for the peo­ple, flo­ra, and fau­na of the State of Wash­ing­ton. Ecol­o­gy made a griev­ous error by giv­ing the oys­ter grow­ers asso­ci­a­tion per­mis­sion to spray a tox­ic pes­ti­cide in Willa­pa Bay in the first place. They erred once more when they tried to defend the plan once peo­ple found out about it, instead of rec­og­niz­ing and admit­ting they’d made a mis­take.

The whole rea­son we have a Depart­ment of Ecol­o­gy to begin with is to ensure that our air, water, and soil are pro­tect­ed… par­tic­u­lar­ly from harm inflict­ed by com­pa­nies and indus­tries that care­less­ly put prof­it ahead of planet.

In this case, Ecol­o­gy let the peo­ple of Wash­ing­ton down, big time. They told WGHOGA yes when they should have said, “NO!”

It’s worth not­ing that Ecol­o­gy has for years allowed oys­ter grow­ers to spray oth­er chem­i­cals into our waters to kill bur­row­ing shrimp — which is a native species! — so that they could con­tin­ue farm­ing non-native oys­ters en masse.

It’s sad that, instead of real­iz­ing, maybe nature’s try­ing to tell us some­thing, Ecol­o­gy went along with WGHOGA’s plan to spray a neu­ro­tox­in-laden pes­ti­cide not meant for use in an aquat­ic envi­ron­ment in Willa­pa Bay.

But appar­ent­ly it was busi­ness as usu­al, which is indica­tive of a seri­ous prob­lem with how Ecol­o­gy is oper­at­ing. As I said, Ecol­o­gy’s mis­sion is to pro­tect Wash­ing­ton’s air, water, and soil. It’s not to pro­tect the bot­tom lines of Wash­ing­ton’s businesses.

Per­haps Ecol­o­gy needs a change of lead­er­ship. At the very least, its exist­ing lead­er­ship need a seri­ous talk­ing-to. Ecol­o­gy must reori­ent itself so that its work is tru­ly guid­ed by Wash­ing­ton’s val­ues and by sound science.

This is impor­tant. We sim­ply can’t con­tin­ue to do things the way we’ve done them in the past. It isn’t sus­tain­able. It won’t do. We are bet­ter than this.

Even if Ecol­o­gy failed us, we can at least be thank­ful that the media did its job for once. WGHOGA’s plan would have almost cer­tain­ly gone ahead were it not for the neg­a­tive pub­lic­i­ty that was gen­er­at­ed by the out­stand­ing jour­nal­ism of Bill Don­ahue and the fine col­umn-writ­ing of Dan­ny West­neat. It sparked a need­ed pub­lic out­cry.

Bill and Dan­ny packed an effec­tive one-two punch, shin­ing a much need­ed spot­light on a very bad deci­sion. Thanks to them, the peo­ple of Wash­ing­ton had an oppor­tu­ni­ty to weigh in and speak out against this absur­di­ty before the oys­ter grow­ers began pump­ing tox­ic chem­i­cals out of heli­copters and into Willa­pa Bay.