After last year's historic heatwave, local shellfish farmers prep for new climate concerns

BOW, Wash. — It has been almost a year since Western Washington was blanketed by record breaking heat that set shattered previous records before new ones were estabalished.

The triple digit temperatures caused all kind of serious problems last summer, including leading to the death of many shellfish, an important part of the local economy:

The extreme hot weather led to many shellfish farmers to think about what future environmental extremes could mean for them and their businesses.

It is a vital task being completed in order to protect thousands of jobs and millions of dollars.

“That heat wave was exceptional. Record high temperatures like nothing we’d ever seen here in the Northwest," said Bill Dewey, spokesman for Taylor Shellfish Farms. "Unfortunately for shellfish farmers, it just happened to overlap one of the biggest low tides we’d had in a decade. We didn't experience any major losses on our farms, but boy there was a number of others in the business that really got impacted.

"All of our crops take multiple years to grow, and the heat wave wasn't selective, it killed everything," Dewey said.

For shellfish farmers, it is a constant battle of adaptation to make sure their industry survives.

Dewey said it is not just more routine hot temperatures that are the problem. There are also changing conditions that make shellfish unsafe to eat, and the industry has to brace for something called ocean acidification.

"A problem caused by the same pollutant, carbon dioxide pollutants that cause climate change, but it's affecting the ocean chemistry and making it hard for animals to produce their shells," Dewey said. "About 15 years ago, it created a crisis in our industry where we couldn’t produce oyster seed,” he said, “we’ve since been able to address that with the help of scientists from the federal government and the universities to where we now have water chemistry monitoring systems in the hatcheries and water treatment systems that allowed us to recover that seed production, but we’re still worried about as conditions get worse what’s going to happen to the animals on our farms and in our nurseries and out in the ocean where we can’t treat the water and change that chemistry."

Dewey said they are also looking into more natural solutions to protect the shellfish like, “co-culturing shellfish with seaweed. Seaweed sucks up that carbon dioxide and naturally improves the water chemistry. Can we grow seaweed with our shellfish crops and improve that water chemistry? Or look to areas where there is natural refuges like Samish Bay, where there’s a lot of eelgrass out here, sucking up that carbon dioxide."

But Dewey said his industry will have to adjust.

"You know, there's not a lot we can do," he said. "Those are natural conditions, and more and more we are developing culture systems that are mobile, that we could potentially move out of harm’s way."

The success, or failure of these solutions to problems that will not go away, means that a lot of jobs and dollars could be at risk.

"We lead the country in farmed shellfish production here in Washington. It supports roughly just under three thousand jobs, direct, or induced jobs and generates $180 million dollars in economic activity," Dewey said. "Whether it be the restaurants in Seattle, or at distribution centers. There’s so many jobs up and down the chain that supply the industry with supplies to grow on their farms and pack their products, airline jobs and trucking jobs.

Robert Spaulding, executive chef at Elliott’s Oyster House in Seattle, expressed concern..

"We serve millions of oysters every year," he said, “It’s particularly concerning when there are events like what we had last year with the heat wave and there’s an affect to the supply of shellfish because we use a lot of them. When the costs go up, it’s not a good thing.”

The heat took a tool.

"Our list did get whittled down. Normally, we run somewhere between 25 and 33 oysters, and I think (last year) we were down to six or eight for a period of time," Spaulding said. “It’s just kind of a wait and see. We’re just keeping our fingers crossed hoping that we don’t have another event like that.”

Spaulding adds if needed, they could source oysters from other parts of the world, but it is not an ideal approach.

"It's not cost effective and it's not a good model necessarily for environmental purposes," he said.

“We fully expect conditions are going to get worse. Whether it be from the heat, or from the changing ocean chemistry, this ocean acidification issue, the scientists have already told us we’re looking at minimum a 30 to 50 years of it getting worse,” Dewey said. “In response to the impacts Climate Change is having on the industry, Taylor Shellfish was a founding member of a group that’s called ‘The Shellfish Growers Climate Coalition.’ It’s now grown to over 250 companies all around the country that are using their stories about how climate and changing ocean chemistry are impacting their businesses to talk to the public and policy makers and try to really stress the importance of addressing carbon pollution,” Dewey said.

Dewey said despite dire predictions, he remains hopeful.

“I try to remain optimistic that we're going to find ways to continue to farm,” he said. "We've worked through a lot of adversities over the decades and we're ready to take this one on as well."