The possibility of leasing more acres in Tomales Bay for shellfish cultivation—and the attendant water quality concerns—were discussed and debated among dozens of attendees at the first Tomales Bay Shellfish Technical Advisory Committee meeting in years, held at the Inverness Yacht Club on Tuesday.
The committee had taken a hiatus while the Regional Water Quality Control Board focused on implementing its Total Maximum Daily Load program for pathogens in the bay, and on administering grants for ranches to keep cattle waste out of creeks.
This week, community members representing a wide variety of organizations—including the University of California Cooperative Extension in Marin, the Environmental Action Committee of West Marin, the Marin Agricultural Land Trust and the Marin Resource Conservation District—and locals simply wanting to know more showed up to hear shellfish growers, the water board and the nonprofit Tomales Bay Watershed Council update the community on shellfish cultivation and water quality concerns.
At one time over 1,100 acres of the bay were used to grow oysters and other shellfish, but now just half that space is used. John Finger, a co-owner of Hog Island Oyster Company, which leases over 100 acres from the California Fish and Game Commission, told the crowd that the bay would never reach that peak again because of changes like greater siltation.
But the biggest problem facing would-be growers, or current growers who would like to expand, is the extremely expensive and time-consuming process facing anyone seeking more water bottoms. (No new leases have been secured since the 1990s, though there have been requests made for subleases from current shellfish growers, according to a Department of Fish and Wildlife employee.)
Mr. Finger noted that in Humboldt Bay, a permitting program is taking the burden off individual growers, who instead can bid for pre-approved acreage; Hog Island itself is bidding. “We think Tomales Bay has some potential along those lines,” he said, adding that his own business has never been able to meet demand since it started selling oysters three decades ago.
But aside from how such a permit program would be funded—Humboldt Bay has its own special harbor district that paid for it—there are concerns about fecal coliform levels in Tomales Bay. Though Mr. Finger said the levels haven’t gotten worse, he wasn’t sure they had improved significantly, either.
A portion of one of Hog Island’s own leases was prohibited from shellfish cultivation a couple months ago because of poor water quality tests, though co-owner Terry Sawyer told the Light last week that the two bad tests both came in February, a month that brought torrential rains after a long drought. “That’s when all hell broke loose in terms of water quality,” Mr. Finger said at the meeting.
Although he called fecal coliform tests a blunt instrument (they cannot pinpoint whether bacteria comes from humans, wildlife, domesticated animals or even native microbes in the soil) its use is mandated by state and federal agencies. And more specific tests are also much more expensive.
Farhad Ghodrati, an environmental scientist with the regional water board, presented a decade of data from creeks that feed freshwater into Tomales Bay. Fecal coliform levels at a number of the board’s 18 testing stations have decreased since implemented a total maximum daily limit on fecal coliform entering the bay was implemented in 2007.
When broken down by season, sampling showed that during the typically wet winter season, loads dropped after the daily limit was implemented in many areas, particularly at sampling sites in Olema, Keys and Millerton Creeks.
But attendees questioned whether the board’s sampling program truly meant that water quality had improved. The samples aren’t taken year round, but instead in two five-week windows—one during the rainy season, one during the dry season. This led some to wonder if the more recent results could be cleaner by virtue of missing big storm events or because of the drought.
Rob Carson, the water quality program manager for the Tomales Bay Watershed Council, shared the results of his group’s testing, which has been undertaken between once a week and once a month, depending on the season and the project’s funding, since 2007. “When I looked at this data, it’s not so clear-cut that everything is getting better,” he said.
Mr. Carson added that the group was particularly concerned with samples from lower Walker Creek.
After the presentations, the chief of the water board’s planning division, Naomi Feger, said the board would try to convene another meeting in the next few weeks for anyone interested in digging in to the data. The next meeting could hold discussions on the future of the sampling program, whether more or different data should be sought and whether the board should attempt a more thorough analysis of data already collected.
Though Ms. Feger added that the technical advisory committee itself only meets once a year, she said she would look into the possibility of arranging more frequent meetings.