Thurston County Commissioners have denied Taylor Shellfish’s mussel farm permit because cumulative impacts were not adequately considered. This doesn’t seem to mean that Taylor cannot come back with more data. The refusal had to do with not presenting what the Hearing Examiner, a lawyer by trade, felt was compelling cumulative impacts of the proposed farm.
The legal precedent behind this decision appears to have been from a variety of already resolved lawsuits, including one by the coalition of a group of six citizen organizations that have been fighting the expansion of shellfish farms, mainly in the South Sound.
Again, it’s interesting to note that the Puget Sound Partnership did not weigh in at all on this case, for either side.
Read the short PDF of the ruling here. There is a longer document of the actual findings from the Hearings Examiner available on line if you wish.
http://www.co.thurston.wa.us/permitting/hearing/decisions/2012/961372.bocc.decision.taylor.pdf
Filed under: Aquaculture, Around the Sound, Shellfish | Tagged: Hood Canal, Oysters, Shellfish, Threats |
