Representatives Van de Wege and others put forward a House Bill (1599) to allow counties to prohibit net pen aquaculture in their Shoreline Master Programs (SMPs). Currently, there is no provision to allow an outright ban. I assume that this is in response to our county commissioners being stalled for months by the Department of Ecology’s refusal to allow pens to be prohibited by county governments. It now needs a Senate companion bill, and time will tell how much opposition this runs into by the industry. We will continue to track this bill in the coming months.
Filed under: Puget Sound | Tagged: goverment, net pens, Puget Sound |
This is great news! Everyone needs to send a Thank You note to Tharinger and Van de Wege – and let us not forget that our county commissioners, in particular Phil Johnson, has been the driving force behind opposing these net pens on our waters. So a note to Phil is also in order.
The battle is not over, though, so all of us will have to be very vigilant as to what happens next.