PORT TOWNSEND — The Jefferson County Marine Resources Committee will receive $16,000 in funding to further an effort to support Olympia oyster populations in Discovery Bay.
The funds are intended to be paid to Hood Canal Oyster Co. (HCOC), which won the bid for the project through a request for proposal (RFP).
The native oysters are growing in numbers due to restoration efforts in recent years, said Neil Harrington, an environmental scientist with the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe who is also a member of the Jefferson County Marine Resources Committee (MRC).
“They’re doing well with some help from their friends,” Harrington said. “The big point is that these populations, both in Sequim Bay and Discovery Bay, were once really plentiful. We’re talking probably acres of Olympia oyster beds. We’re talking millions of oysters when it comes down to it, historically.”
The oysters were probably overharvested and affected by land use, Harrington said. Sedimentation may have taken a toll.
“That was kind of their fall,” he said. “Their rise is that we’ve done quite a bit of restoration. If you think about Discovery Bay, there’s been some estuary restoration, tidal marsh restoration, stream restoration up stream, and the bay is, in many ways, in better shape than it was 20 years ago.”
Funds will go toward distributing clean Pacific oyster shells in the bay. The distribution is part of a habitat enhancement project which has taken place over the last 10 years, according to the MRC project page. The intent is to create a substrate of shells, which serve as habitat for Olympia oyster larvae.
“Olympia oysters have larval stage where they swim around in the water for about a week, maybe 10 days,” Harrington said. “Then they want to land on something, and that thing needs to be a piece of hard substrate.”
They can land on wood, shells or rocks, but they won’t survive if they land on mud, Harrington said.
In 2014, the MRC launched its habitat enhancement project by distributing shells to create a substrate near a small but stable population of Olympia oysters. The oysters were not expanding due to limitations in habitat, but the additional substrate caught a lot a larvae, Harrington said.
There are now more than 100,000 Olympia oysters in the middle of Discovery Bay, Harrington said, with thousands more along the edge of the bay.
In Sequim Bay, the Clallam County MRC, along with the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, took a different tact, Harrington said. They collected oysters and brought them back to a hatchery. Spawned oysters were then spread out in Sequim Bay.
Harrington said there are more than 100,000 Olympia oysters in Sequim Bay as well.
Monitors are seeing natural reproduction, Harrington said.
“It’s a real success story in terms of these animals, which were really such a small fraction of their original population,” Harrington said. “The idea too is that, not only do we have animals out there, but they create their own habitat.”
Olympia oysters rarely or never grow to the 2 1/2-inch size requirement for harvest in Washington, Harrington said.
The county-dispersed grant came from the state Department of Ecology. The Board of Jefferson County Commissioners passed an agreement to work with HCOC as a part of their consent agenda Monday.
A desired timeline was stated for a mid-December completion in the RFP.
Harrington said HCOC will use a 50-foot boat to distribute the bags onto the mudflat at high tide and drop them off at marker buoys. The HCOC specified it would provide 1,500 bags with 250-300 oyster shells per bag. At low tide, Harrington said, the shells will be distributed by hand, and the bags will be disposed of.
HCOC also wrote it has been providing oyster shells and seeds to the state Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) for 15 to 20 years. The RFP specified a requirement that shells qualify for WDFW shell transfer permits.
Jefferson County Commissioner Heidi Eisenhour sits on the MRC committee as a representative of the board. In 2023, she took part in spreading 30 yards of oyster shells in the bay, along with a group of MRC volunteers.
Eisenhour said the shell distribution project has seen a lot of success in bringing the Olympia oyster numbers up. Another boom in population is expected based on the 2023 shell distribution, Eisenhour said.
The MRC is considering other locations for the restoration of Olympia oysters within its area of responsibility, Eisenhour said. The committee feels there are other viable sites in the county, she said.
“We just have to get landowner agreement to work in other areas,” Eisenhour said. “I know we’re looking at places like Kilisut Harbor around Marrowstone Island.”
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Reporter Elijah Sussman can be reached by email at elijah.sussman@sequimgazette.com.
