A Washington state senator said an entire oyster industry in the southwestern part of the state is at peril if the state's Department of Ecology continues to prohibit farmers from using a controversial pesticide.
The state has twice blocked the use of imidacloprid, a neonicotinoid pesticide many say they need to save their industry from an infestation of native burrowing shrimp. Farmers say imidacloprid has no adverse environmental impact and dissolves completely before any shellfish seeding is done in treated areas, but the department has ruled it too risky for Washington’s waters, citing concerns at the bottom of the food chain.
Meanwhile, State Senator Dean Takko said burrowing shrimp have been devastating oyster farms in Willapa Bay, a major producer of farmed shellfish in rural Pacific County.
In an editorial for The Seattle Times last week, Takko said the infestation has cost farmers USD 50 million (EUR 43.9 million) over the past five years and threatens to slash production by 90 percent if it goes untreated.
“An infestation of burrowing shrimp is steadily transforming the aquatic habitat into a goopy swamp of barren mud that swallows shellfish, suffocating them and turning thousands of acres of diverse and productive tide flats into barren wastelands,” he wrote in the Times.
The burrowing shrimp make mudflats porous, causing oysters to sink into the mud and become inedible.
Many of the farms on Willapa Bay are family-run and go back generations, some pre-dating statehood in Washington. It’s a way of life in Pacific County, Takko wrote, and a major economic motor in an otherwise economically depressed region.
“The shellfish industry is the largest employer in Pacific County and the backbone of the rural economy, responsible for more than 2,000 family-wage jobs and [USD] 102 million [EUR 89.7 million] in annual economic output,” Takko wrote.
In a statement issued by the Department of Ecology, the department said the pesticide did not meet “Washington's environmental sediment and water quality protection laws.” The report cited concerns about imidacloprid’s impact on benthic invertebrates, Dungeness crab, and a general disruption of the food web that could harm fish and birds.
Photo courtesy of NOAA
