A small shellfish company in Tomales Bay must now adhere to a suite of mandatory practices, after the California Coastal Commission updated its permit last week—with promises to bring a host of other mariculture operations to its chambers for permit updates in the coming months.
The changes to the coastal development permit for Marin Oyster Company, a wholesale operation that leases about 30 acres, were triggered after commission staff discovered that cultivation methods had changed multiple times on one five-acre lease since a permit was issued in 1983.
In the near future, the commission will address other growers who, over time, also changed cultivation methods without updating their permits. Commission staffer Cassidy Teufel said that even when changes seem beneficial, they can come with coastal impacts. The commission is particularly concerned about effects on benthic habitat and eelgrass beds, which are considered sensitive habitat.
To offset any impacts from Marin Oyster’s operation, the commission approved a suite of mitigation measures, some of which—like tagging all culture gear with identifying information—echo the advocacy of Richard James, an Inverness resident whose blog, the Coastodian, documents oyster gear debris and other items he finds in the bay.
Issues around marine debris in Tomales Bay have garnered substantial attention in recent years, spurring stakeholder meetings and an ongoing effort by the California Fish and Game Commission to develop a set of best management practices for growers.
According to Randy Lovell, the state aquaculture coordinator for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, the hope is to present a draft of recommendations to the marine subcommittee of the Fish and Game Commission in July. He expects to see overlap between the management practices and the California Coastal Commission’s new permit stipulations.
Marin Oyster is not alone in changing practices without seeking commission approval. “This is one of many aquaculture-related permit applications, or permit amendment requests, that we are expecting…to be bringing before you over the next year, to resolve some longstanding permit noncompliance issues, and some concerns about unpermitted development,” Alison Dettmer, deputy director of energy, oceans and federal consistency for the coastal commission, told commissioners on May 9.
The changes won support from the Environmental Action Committee of West Marin and Mr. James, the only two to submit comment letters on the permit.
“The special conditions address important issues concerning the health of Tomales Bay and the ocean at large,” Mr. James wrote in an email to the Light. He also acknowledged that he finds much less oyster culture equipment than he used to.
But John Finger, a co-owner of Hog Island Oyster Company—which is also in the process of updating its coastal permit—expressed frustration over the lack of a programmatic approach to permit changes.
In the case of Marin Oyster, a previous owner operating on its lease switched some areas from “stake and rack” to longline bottom bags and floating bags. Marin Oyster then shifted some of those longlines to a newer method involving elevated baskets. Along with seeking after-the-fact approval last week, the company sought a green light to replace additional longlines with 62 elevated basket lines that could hold about 500,000 oysters in a one-acre area.
The new mitigation measures approved by the commission include tagging all gear with identifying owner information; expiration terms for the permit; mandatory annual reports; curbing marine debris through mandatory employee training and lease surveys as soon as possible after storms to collect debris; quarterly cleanups, which many growers have been undertaking for years on a voluntary basis; and a prohibition on storing tools or construction equipment on leases. The commission may also modify the permit if there is consistent extensive loss of aquaculture equipment or failure to maintain equipment in an intact and serviceable condition.
Mr. Finger in particular took issue with the mandate to tag all gear. Hog Island, he said, already tags floating gear, which can travel far if it escapes. But tagging every item requires more zip ties, which can break off and create more debris in and of itself.
The commission’s staff report said that tagging would help resolve the question of which companies were responsible for the most lost gear.
Part of a state initiative
Shellfish operators view permitting requirements for new leases as arduous and expensive. They necessitate authorizations by the coastal commission, the California Fish and Game Commission, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Regional Water Quality Control Board.
In part to address the burden, in 2013, the California Shellfish Initiative kicked off a series of discussions—the first of which took place in Inverness—between state and federal agencies, shellfish growers and other stakeholders on how to streamline permitting and expand shellfish cultivation in the state.
“We haven’t seen new shellfish farms in decades,” John Finger, the co-owner of Hog Island Oyster Company, said. “We talked about taking a more programmatic approach. Other states have a statewide permit to cover shellfish farming if you’re using techniques A, B or C and staying away from this and that habitat” and cultivating pre-approved kinds of shellfish.
The initiative spurred the coastal commission to identify all 18 aquaculture operations in California, their “type, location and scale of existing operations, as well as the status of past permitting actions,” Mr. Teufel said.
Half of them have no coastal permit, and many have no Army Corps or water board permits. According to Mr. Teufel, almost all of the others are “not fully in compliance with their permits and need permit amendments.”
The commission is working with growers, other agencies and local governments to ensure that every permit is updated. Staff are currently reviewing four applications for after-the-fact approvals and expect the remaining five applications to arrive by summer’s close.
Yet Mr. Finger expressed frustration that one of the main goals of the initiative—a programmatic process that would streamline and simplify pre-approval across multiple agencies—has not materialized. Instead, violation notices began appearing. “It’s not being done in any programmatic way, which I believe is not only the worst for the growers, but also is making a lot more work for the agencies,” Mr. Finger said.
In answer to whether the commission ever considered a programmatic approach, Ms. Dettmer wrote in an email, “To the best of my knowledge, no grower has yet to ask for a consolidated permit process rather than each get a permit.” She added that such an approach did not seem to make sense in a place like Tomales Bay, where most growers already have permits and simply need amendments. There could be legal reasons why growers wouldn’t want such a process anyway, she said.
But both she and Mr. Teufel acknowledged growers’ cost concerns, and Mr. Teufel said the commission is exploring “creative solutions” with them. That might mean relying on existing environmental data and studies and coordinating “with other resource agencies on site visits and information field surveys,” he said.
Mr. Lovell, of Fish and Wildlife, emphasized that they are working on coordinating some efforts in an attempt to reduce costs. Additionally, the agency will conduct a survey this summer on growing methods along the coast, in an effort to standardize terminology.
“If we as regulating agencies use terminology to describe cultivation methods in [coastal development permits] or in a lease, then we need to make sure we can agree on the terms,” he said.
Fish and Wildlife has also applied for a grant to analyze the environmental impacts of different shellfish cultivation methods and different species, hoping to save growers money if and when they seek permission to make such changes, which trigger a review under the California Environmental Quality Act.
This article was corrected on May 19.