The Sierra Club’s North Olympic Group and the Sierra Club Chapter Water Salmon Committee invites the community to “Industrial Aquaculture: Food or Folly? Losing the Wild?”, a forum about how oceans are being commercialized for the few and the losses that follow, set for 3-5 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 13, at the Dungeness Schoolhouse, 2781 Towne Road.
The event is free. Handouts from the sponsoring and presenting organizations will be available, along with coffee and tea.
Guest speakers include: Kurt Beardslee, Executive Director of the Wild Fish Conservancy; Laura Hendricks, founding director of the Coalition To Protect Puget Sound; Alfredo Quarto, co-director and co-founder of Mangrove Action Project, and Anne Mosness of the Go Wild Campaign.
Beardsley, who presents “The Success of the Our Sound, Our Salmon Campaign: Phasing Out Atlantic Salmon Aquaculture in Puget Sound,” along with Wild Fish Conservancy (WFC) staff, have investigated the risk open-water Atlantic salmon aquaculture places on the Pacific Northwest’s wild salmon. In the spring of 2017, WFC launched the Our Sound, Our Salmon (OSOS) campaign with the goal of phasing out Atlantic salmon net pens from Puget Sound.
In his talk, Beardsley discusses risks posed by farming Atlantic salmon in open-water net pens as well as potential land-based closed containment solutions for the industry. He will give a brief overview of WFC’s current litigation to hold Cooke Aquaculture accountable under the Clean Water Act for releasing 260,000 non-native Atlantic salmon into Puget Sound, and WFC’s ongoing Endangered Species Act suit against the federal government for failure to protect ESA-listed species from harm caused by industrial Atlantic salmon net pens.
Hendricks, who presents “Shellfish and Disappearing Beaches,” has over the last 11 years helped her coalition educate the public and regulators on shellfish aquaculture’s effects on Washington state’s marine life. She represented citizens against the shellfish industry at a hearing before the Washington State Shorelines Hearings Board and won the case to protect eelgrass, a Washington State Appeals Court precedent-setting case.
Hendricks will give an update about pending legal action by the Coalition to Protect Puget Sound Habitat, Protect Zangle Cove and Wild Fish Conservancy filed against the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW. That suit demands an end to WDFW’s exemption of industrial shellfish aquaculture projects from Hydraulic Project Approvals — state standards designed and required to protect fish and marine habitats.
Quarto presents “Consider Before You Buy Shrimp” at the Oct. 13 meeting. For 25 years, Quarto has worked with indigenous cultures around the world helping them restore mangrove forests and way of life, prior to corporations having destroyed their ecosystems to industrialize the raising of shrimp. He will have a short video about these villages and mangrove trees.
Formerly an aerospace engineer, Quarto is a veteran campaigner with more than 40 years of experience in organizing and writing on the environment and human rights issues.
Mosness , who will present “Current and Pending Efforts of the Federal Government to Raise Penned Fish,” has been tracking the federal government efforts raise penned salmon in offshore waters beyond jurisdictions and regulations of states. She will speak on the current pending efforts, and losses, of such government efforts. Mosness fished the Copper River and Bristol Bay, Alaska, decades, a multi-general family profession. She has worked for several other national environmental and food organizations.
The event is cosponsoring by Friends of Miller Peninsula State Park, Olympic Environmental Coalition, Olympic Forest Coalition and Protect Peninsula’s Future.
