After greater than a century of farming shellfish in Tomales Bay, California’s oldest oyster farm has been introduced into the fold of the state’s coastal protections for the primary time.
The California Coastal Fee voted unanimously this month to approve an after-the-fact coastal improvement allow for the Tomales Bay Oyster Co.’s oyster and mussel cultivation within the bay.
First based in 1909, the corporate was established a number of many years earlier than California handed its coastal improvement protections beneath the California Coastal Act and shaped the California Coastal Fee in 1976.
The corporate’s previous and present house owners had by no means sought a coastal improvement allow — or approvals from different state and federal regulatory businesses — for its operations up till the mid-2010s, in accordance with the fee.
Heidi Gregory, who now manages the corporate after taking possession from her father Charles Good friend in 2017, has been persevering with her father’s work to take away previous legacy gear from their 160-acre lease and now to convey the farm into compliance with varied regulatory businesses.
“We’re additionally pleased with lastly getting by this course of,” Gregory stated on Tuesday. “It took us a very long time. It’s nice to be completed with it.”
The allow permits the corporate to proceed holding its 160-acre lease on Tomales Bay, of which 33 acres can be utilized to develop oysters and mussels. The allow is efficient by Feb. 8, 2027 and requires the corporate to adjust to sure circumstances.
The corporate should take away a floating barge and all deserted shellfish cultivation gear inside its lease inside one 12 months until an extension is granted. About 70 cubic yards of apparatus and materials, together with rope, iron racks, cultivation baggage and PVC posts will have to be eliminated throughout almost 5 acres, Gregory stated.
Different circumstances embrace requiring the corporate to mark all of its shellfish baggage inside two years; use pre-identified vessel routes when touring to their gear to keep away from disturbing wildlife and habitat; submit an annual report of its cleanup efforts and workers trainings; examine its farming gear for indicators of Pacific herring spawning from December by February, amongst different circumstances.
“We wish to be good stewards of the bay and deal with the land that we're in control of,” Gregory stated. “That’s essential to us and to maintain this stunning place that we stay in as pristine as we are able to. As farmers, we're the primary to see what’s occurring within the water, if it’s pleased or wholesome and if it’s not wholesome then there's something we have to change.”
The Environmental Motion Committee of West Marin, a nonprofit environmental group primarily based in Level Reyes Station, supported the circumstances and counseled the corporate for coming into compliance with the state’s coastal protections.
“These circumstances present help for a lot of species within the bay: the coho salmon, brant, completely different birds,” stated Ashley Eagle-Gibbs, authorized and coverage director for the committee. “There have been vital declines in shorebirds on Tomales Bay. It’s nice that this operator is now in compliance and there are sturdy protections for habitat and eelgrass.”
The 15-mile-long Tomales Bay is residence to 9% of California’s remaining 14,600 acres of eelgrass beds, in accordance with a 2018 examine by the California Native Plant Society. Eelgrass beds act as very important sources of meals and habitat for quite a lot of species — from fish to migrating birds alongside the Pacific flyway — and likewise sequester carbon dioxide.
Earlier than approving the Tomales Bay Oyster Co. allow on Aug. 10, some coastal commissioners counseled the corporate and workers for his or her years of labor. Commissioner and Marin County Supervisor Katie Rice recalled when she labored at Tomales Bay Oyster Co. within the Eighties whereas pregnant together with her son.
“I've walked in these waters and know that place very properly, intimately,” Rice stated through the assembly. “I’m simply so glad that it’s in nice stewards’ palms proper now.”
Commissioner Mike Wilson, a Humboldt County supervisor and former Humboldt Bay Harbor and Conservation District commissioner, stated oyster farmers have a historical past of working to protect the habitat they depend on, together with in Humboldt Bay.
“In my expertise in having labored deeply with this sector, you've farmers which can be in essentially the most dynamic and biodiverse ecosystem on the planet and so they’re doing the work to not simply generate meals however really defend that setting on the similar time,” Wilson stated through the assembly.