Some of you may remember Hazel Wolf who established Audubon chapters throughout Washington State, 21 of the 26 chapters.
I have no doubt that were she still alive, she would compel Ron Allen to cease his plan to commercialize the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge, aka the Spit, to raise oysters for private profit on 34 acres of it; a project the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers admits can destabilize the refuge’s functions.
Hazel worked to forge communication between the Northwest Indian tribes and environmentalists.
She had a close friendship with Ron Allen, encouraging him to pursue his work in growing the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe.
Hazel passed at age 101 in 2000.
I attended her memorial in Seattle.
As I recall, Ron Allen spoke at her memorial.
Thinking back to that history saddens me how he is repaying that friendship by harming birds she sought to save.
Mr. Allen’s plan is to grow oysters in 80,000 toxic-plastic bags over 50 percent of the Refuge’s prime bird-feeding area.
He denies his plastic bags are toxic, or will fragment and add plastic to the marine ecosystem and endanger the birds.
Not only will sediment life under the bags be smothered; so, too, will the eelgrass beds.
The bags will change the seasonal sediment-movement patterns by pushing mounds of sediments into the salmon-nursery-eelgrass beds and where the black Brants seek nourishment.
Ron Allen, cancel your shellfish application.
Respect the needs of the refuge birds and Hazel Wolf.
Darlene Schanfald
Sequim