Hazards

Children cannot play or run freely because of dangerous fixtures. Windsurfers have testified at hearings that they have become injured on the pipes. Picture to the right shows rebar partially submerged in the murky waters. Geoduck companies use rebar to hold down their nets.

Left over rebar in three different locations from 3 different companies.

These nets block access to beach walkers, trap fish and birds. When covered by the water, they could become a hazard to swimmers. Currents in Puget Sound are strong enough to make a swimmer or child on a floating toy get misdirected into these areas. Wind surfers have testified at community meetings of getting caught in loose rope that was used to anchor the nets. We think that these farms should be located away from recreational areas and homes.

All these birds are present on the site. Not pictured are Blue Heron, Osprey, and Goldeneye. They all are either divers or would go after fish or food that could be under the nets. Some aquaculture companies have responded to concerns of bird heads being caught in nets by using a smaller mesh size. However we wonder what the effect of large areas of netted beach has on the foraging areas of these birds.

Geoduck companies use rubberbands to secure the small nets on top of the PVC pipes as pictured to the right. To the left is a picture of an otter with one of them around it's waist that a resident of Case inlet took. It was found on their lawn writhing around trying to work it off.

These are 2 pictures taken by a Henderson Bay resident of an eagle caught in a large broadcast net that the aquaculture companies use. The man who took these pictures said that first a baby eagle was caught in the net, and then the adult came to rescue it. You can just make out the legion of seagulls harrassing them as they struggled. The tide was rising and started to cover the eagle's head when he decided to go out and try to free it. Eagles have very strong talons so you can imagine the danger he put himself in.

The photo on the left is of beach nets that the aquaculture companies also use. These can float up with the tide,if not properly secured as in the photo to the right. An unsuspecting boater or waterskier would have no idea what that was, causing propeller damage, or worse. Nets also break up and litter beaches.