For The Olympian
Representatives of the Pacific Coast Shellfish Growers Association spent Oct. 1 cleaning up trash on Squaxin and Hope islands.

For The Olympian
Collected trash was hauled to a centrally located barge. An estimated 60 cubic yards of debris was then loaded into trucks and taken to the landfill.

Beach cleaner thanks to shellfish growers

Organizers estimate 20 percent of debris collected is shellfish industry-generated

DUGGAN KINNE, FOR THE OLYMPIAN

Originally published October 9, 2001

HOPE ISLAND -- The trash on the beach didn't match the mood of the windless, warm day on the shoreline of this beautiful unoccupied island.

That's why the Pacific Coast Shellfish Growers Association (PCSGA) launched what it hopes will become an annual beach cleanup. Fourteen beachcombers spent a good part of the day picking up accumulated trash along six miles of shoreline on Squaxin and Hope islands Oct. 1.

"We picked up an estimated 60 cubic yards of trash during the day," said Brett Bishop, owner operator of Little Skookum Shellfish Growers and the event's organizer. "I'd guess three quarters of the volume of trash were pieces of those Styrofoam logs that are used as flotation devices under docks and rafts."

"We could date some of the stuff back eight or nine years, and even came across some of our own clam bags, with our name and the date right on them," Bishop said. "What an advertisement -- this litter brought to you by Little Skookum!"

Several South Sound shellfish growers combined forces to provide people and boats to collect and haul their findings to a centrally positioned barge onto which the hundreds of bulging garbage bags were stacked.

At the end of the day, the barge's contents were off-loaded by hand into trucks and hauled to Mason County's landfill.

The PCSGA paid the dumping fees.

Squaxin and Hope islands were selected for this first cleanup because of their position relative to the prevailing winds and tides.

"We cruised around last week to confirm our suspicions as to where a lot of stuff would likely end up and selected our locations accordingly," Bishop said. "We cleared from the low tide up to the poison oak line."

The cleanup not only allowed shellfish growers to be good neighbors, it also helped them determine how much of the trash was generated by the industry.

"That which we clearly knew was ours; clam bags, predator netting, those materials that just the industry uses, we put aside. I estimate it was about 20 percent of the total collected," Bishop said.

"As an industry, we are working on ways to reduce that which we lose, and this gives us information on what improvements we need to make."

Paul Harris is the operating manager of Seattle Shellfish, which despite its name has the majority of its shellfish beds in South Sound. He was along on the cleanup and was gratified to find only two or three of his company's distinctive, old-style geoduck predator protector tubes.

"When we first started our geoduck beds back in 1997, we made a big mistake and used these tubes that floated," he said. "We were horrified to discover that they became uprooted during storms and such and were gone. We switched to another kind that don't float and recovered thousands of the old kind and took them to the dump."

"I know some of my stuff gets away, and I can't help that, but it's not acceptable," Harris said. "It's important for me to know that while we've created some of the trash, we're also helping to clean it up."

Duggan Kinne is a correspondent for The Olympian.

The Olympian Copyright 2001