| 2005 in Review
Drayton
Harbor Shellfish District
By Geoff Menzies
The Drayton Harbor Shellfish Protection District Citizens
Advisory Committee has just wound up its 10th year working
to clean up Drayton Harbor. It has been another successful
year for this volunteer committee.
We were able to secure some Whatcom County funding for
2005 and 2006 to provide staff support and some high priority
water quality monitoring and pollution control projects.
These projects focus on intensive water quality monitoring
in the California Creek drainage, wet weather sampling
in Drayton Harbor, development of a volunteer stormwater
sampling program for both Birch Bay and Drayton Harbor
watersheds, and expanded community outreach in the Drayton
Harbor watershed. Look for another shellfish district open
house and Oyster Feed coming this spring. The committee
has also participated with the Whatcom County health department
in its efforts to develop an operations and maintenance
program for septic systems both in the watershed and county-wide.
Our watershed among others will likely receive initial
focus for septic system inventories, inspection, and prompt
repairs where needed.
The Puget Sound restoration fund’s
community oyster farm project is plugging along as well.
In spite of 28 rain closures last harvest season and seven
already this season, these volunteer farmers of the tideflats
have harvested over 2,000 bushel baskets of oysters. This
crop has yielded more than 6,000 dozen single oysters with
a market value approaching $40,000. Most of these oysters
were shipped to China, but many were sold in Blaine on
the dock.
The restoration fund and the volunteers in the
community oyster farm remain committed to fully restoring
water quality in Drayton Harbor. The farmers of the tideflats
planted another acre of bottom culture oyster seed in Drayton
Harbor this past summer. This project also purchased several
thousand single oysters this summer from the Lummi shellfish
hatchery. These are being grown using a new off-bottom
technique. We have been selling these yearling oysters
on the dock in Blaine and to Vis Seafood in Bellingham
and the Willows Inn on Lummi Island. Everyone’s raving
about them.
The next two years will be critical for Drayton
Harbor water quality and the complete restoration of
shellfish harvesting opportunities. If we continue to nurture
the community partnerships that have developed in the past
few years, we should see the bay once again approved
for year-round shellfish harvest as it was 10 years ago. |
