Protect the Peninsula’s Future (PPF) is a nonprofit public benefit corporation engaged
in environmental protection and wise land use on the North Olympic Peninsula since 1973.

Help save the natural resources and animals on Washington State’s North Olympic Peninsula.

 

Recent PPF News

Action Alerts & Updates

Your Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge (DNWR) Spit is at Risk

Help Save It!!

Commercial shellfish operations cover tens of thousands of acres in Washington State — at least one-third of our shorelines.

Natural Capital vs Industrial $
A corporation wants to industrialize the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge to grow oysters for its corporate gain. National wildlife refuges are owned, operated and maintained by the public to enrich itself. The corporation intends to keep the birds from their feeding grounds so it can sell its non-native, plastic-bag-grown oysters abroad as well as to local restaurants.

Don’t Feed the Plastic to the Refuge
Humungous levels of plastic will be added to the marine ecosystem. This corporate plan is to immediately grow oysters in 20,000 highly toxic plastic bags with plans to increase the number to 80,000 bags. The project’s design is to anchor these bags to the sub-intertidal beds squarely in the major wild bird feeding area. After oysters grow to a particular size, they will be debagged and spread along 34 acres of the Refuge’s beach.

Don’t Starve the Birds
The projected toxic-plastic bottom bags will deny wild birds their nourishment by reducing the feeding area habitat by at least 50 percent. To find food, birds will have to peck through the plastic bags and will likely ingest the plastic, risking, as well, being caught in them. All sediment life beneath the bags will be smothered.

Don’t Impact Eelgrass Beds and Destabilize Refuge Functions
The entire dynamics of Dungeness Spit will be altered forever. It will shift this Refuge bird and bottomland community to one dominated by growing oysters. Oyster beds will severely inhibit eelgrass growth, critical to feeding forage fish, salmon and thousands of migrating birds. They will shift the natural, seasonal movement of the sediments, pushing more sediments into the eelgrass beds, and destabilize the functioning of the Refuge.

This industry attracts pathogens and invasive animals that affect shellfish. This corporation has permits to grow oysters and other shellfish at four other sites. Shellfish growers know that the warming weather is killing shellfish. The 2021 extreme heat conditions created major oyster graveyards around the U.S. – the shellfish baked in the heat when tides were out.

Keep the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge wild!

Urgent !

It is urgent you write letters/emails telling Department of Natural Resources and US Fish and Wildlife Service rescind the Dungeness National Wildlife lease.

WRITE TO:

Hilary Franz, Commissioner
Office of the Commissioner of Public Lands
MS47001 USFWS Pacific Region
Olympia WA 98504

cpl@dnr.wa.gov

……………………….

Robyn Thorson, Regional Director
Regional Director’s Office-R1
911 NE 11 th Avenue
Portland OR 97232-4181

Robyn_Thorson@fws.gov

……………………..

“Suggested Talking Points”

• Your agency agrees that significant harm will be done to the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge (DNWR), yet has stepped aside to allow a 50-acre concentrated animal feed lot of 20,000 – 80,000 plastic bags of oysters to endanger the Refuge and starve the birds.
• Citizens of the United States overwhelmingly opposed this oyster project and were ignored. The US EPA disapproved. Even before the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) took public comment, it agreed to permit the project. The public must challenge this public slap-in-the-face.
• Your agency is mandated to protect our natural resources, not commercialize them for short-term corporate gain. We pay with our tax dollars to have you operate and maintain these lands for the good of wildlife protection. We demand that you withdraw the oyster project permits from the DNWR.
• Permitting agencies, including the USACE, admitted the incompatibility of shellfish farming with the purpose of the DNWR. The Public Lands’ staff has not denied this incompatibility.
• 50% reduction in bird primary feeding grounds
• Plastic oyster bags will exclude the probing shorebird flocks from feeding deeply into the substrate
• Plastic bags entrap fish and birds
• Plastic bags will fray, adding macro- and micro-plastic bits to the sediment throughout the Refuge
• The thousands of oyster bags, flush on the substrate, will shift the benthic community composition
• The ecological benefits provided by eelgrass to threatened fish and birds, such as nourishment and cover from predators, will be diminished..
• The operation’s release of nutrients in the water and the warming weather will increase algal blooms that will leave a graveyard of dead oysters
• Pathogenic oyster Denman Island Disease, oyster drills and invasive green crabs will increase
• The applicant already has permits at 4 other sites for shellfish production, and there is plenty of
acreage for this project in the shellfish area at their corporate headquarters
• These detrimental effects to our National Refuge are NOT minimal. The proposed shellfish operation would significantly harm our National Refuge. Decision makers cannot conclude that the financial benefits to the corporation outweigh the long term and cumulative impacts to the Refuge, and that the damage will be temporary. Death of birds, salmon and other wildlife is permanent, not temporary.

For more information click here to access all our Dungeness Refuge Blog Posts

RESCIND THE LEASES!

PPF Has Many Successes to Celebrate

PPF has keen interest in many key statutes.

Acts dealing with Growth Management; Public Disclosure; Shorelines of the State; Clean Water; Clean Air; Endangered Species; and the Public Trust Doctrine.

Our work helped protect the Miller Peninsula.

A nuclear power plant was not sited on Miller Peninsula. We also stopped subsequent attempts to use the same land for an off-road vehicle park, and a mega housing/resort development. We are currently working to protect Miller Peninsula State Park from being developed into a playground instead of place to appreciate wildlife. PPF co-led, with Save Our State Park, a successful legal action to stop Washington State from ceding to the Mitsubishi Corporation 1000 acres of dedicated State Park land. The land, almost 3000 acres, has become Miller Peninsula State Park.

Protection of shellfish beds has been another area of focus.

After a 13 year legal battle, PPF made the City of Sequim treat its sewage water to a higher standard than elsewhere for non potable uses on land, keeping most of it from being dumped in Sequim Bay—where previously it had all been discharged. City of Sequim sewage is treated to the highest possible standards for beneficial uses, away from salt water and shellfish beds. (A created wetland would have cost $1.4 million according to our professional engineer, Dr. Gearhart. Sequim instead chose a $6 million conventional alternative.)

We sponsor educational programs to enhance public awareness.

For 2021 PPF sent contributions to support the good works of Olympic Environmental Council, Toxic-Free Future, and Futurewise.

PPF has successfully protected the environment in Port Angeles and Sequim.

Two major proposals for Port Angeles to become an oil port were defeated. John Wayne Marina was required to have a public boat launch and park. Creosote pilings in the marina must gradually be converted to nontoxic materials.

Our Latest Projects

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Objections to Forest Service Decision Notice & Finding of No Significant Impacts of Electronic Warfare Range

Download PPF comments January 10, 2017 United States Forest Service 1835 Black Lake Blvd. SW Olympic, WA 98512 Attention: Reta...
Read More
 

Save Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge

A corporation intends to commercialize 34-acres of the National Dungeness Wildlife Refuge with 80,000 plastic oyster bags.  The U.S. Corps...
Read More
 

Petition to End Commercial Net Pen Aquaculture

Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz, We, the undersigned, respectfully urge you not to extend, renew, or reissue leases for...
Read More
 

Olympic National Park Air Tour Plan

PPF submitted the following comments to the National Park Service: Protect the Peninsula’s Future, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization registered with...
Read More

Protect the Peninsula's Future - Founder

Dr. Eloise Kailin, Founder

“Dr. Eloise Kailin helped fight against a nuclear power plant on the Miller Peninsula east of Sequim — and won. That was in 1973 and led to the formation of the nonprofit Protect the Peninsula’s Future, the North Olympic Peninsula’s longest-standing environmental group.”

“In 2007, Kailin was the first recipient of the People for Puget Sound Legacy Award given in the spirit of the late Sen. Warren G. Magnuson.”

“She also has been honored by the Washington Environmental Council and has received the 1987 Clallam County Community Service Award.”   Read more

Header photo credits: Orca by Minette Layne; Salish Sea by Juraj Tatar; some photos from U.S. Forest Service; By Adbar – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27301905; CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=55229501.