Save our Tomales Bay – Part 27 Good news continues

Click the above words “Save our Tomales Bay – Part 26 Good news and great news” to see this entire post.

As I slipped on my mud boots yesterday in preparation for my seventy-seventh week of walking the shore near the TBOC retail site to pick up their trash, an odd sound filled the air.

Power tools, like none I’d heard before at the farm. Hmmmm?

Found zip-tie number one as soon as I set foot on the beach. No zero-day day today Tod. Soon, the second and third were in the bag. Along with some “tourist trash”, or likely oyster customer trash given the location. Still that sound…..

Then I turned the corner to see Tod and nine of his guys fanned out in the mud, picking up trash. Was I hallucinating?

No, there they were.

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Tomales Bay Oyster Company owner and staff picking up their trash. What a great idea!

Tomales Bay Oyster Company owner and staff picking up their trash. What a great idea!

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The truck was on the beach too, but no oysters in it.

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Truck full of Tomales Bay Oyster Company trash no longer creating an eyesore in the bay, nor a risk to wildlife.

Truck full of Tomales Bay Oyster Company trash no longer creating an eyesore in the bay, nor a risk to wildlife.

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Next to the truck was the source of the noise. Tod had hired 1-800-got-junk to cut up the large mountain of rusting oyster racks that had been in the bay for 25 years, and on this beach for a few months at least.

This is a great sight to see. I thanked Tod and his workers and even tried to help them, but was shooed away by Tod.

Let’s hope that this trend continues. That is, any mess made by the oyster companies gets picked up by the oyster companies. Tod and his workers told me there are at least as many old, rusting racks spoiling the bay still to be removed.
Not to mention the thousands of PVC tubes and other plastic trash left over from Drew Alden, the previous leaseholder that left this in the bay for somebody else to deal with.

Preferably, we’ll see oyster companies that make very little mess.

Redesigning their gear to reduce loss, regular patrols of the beaches and bay to pickup their lost gear in a timely fashion and workers that do not take shortcuts or purposely drop garbage in the bay will all contribute to a healthier ecosystem.

Panorama of the area blighted by Tomales Bay Oyster Company, in the process of being de-blighted.

Panorama of the area blighted by Tomales Bay Oyster Company, in the process of being de-blighted.

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1-800-got-junk guys removing oyster farming junk from Tomales Bay.

1-800-got-junk guys removing oyster farming junk from Tomales Bay.

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Please take a moment to read this brief document, then write Sonke Mastrup, the Executive Director of the Fish & Game Commission, as well as Randy Lovell, the State Aquaculture Coordinator at the CA Dept Fish & Wildlife and tell them you want stronger language in the leases they provide to growers using your waters to make a profit.

Sonke can be reached at: fgc@fgc.ca.gov – 916-653-4899

Randy can be reached at: randy.lovell@wildlife.ca.gov – 916-445-2008

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Next related post may be found here.

Previous related post may be found here.

See the first post in this series “Save our Tomales Bay” here.

Save our Tomales Bay – Part 26 Good news and great news

Click the above words “Save our Tomales Bay – Part 26 Good news and great news” to see this entire post.

Boated out to Tom’s Point on Saturday to pull ice plant and pick up trash.

The good news is I only found four grow out bags, three from Hog Island and one purse-type bag from another grower, a type I have never found loose before. Had that purse been uniquely labeled, I, and anyone else out picking up trash would know exactly whose gear it was and we could contact the owner about it. This is good news because usually I find dozens, or even hundreds of abandoned grow out bags in this area.

One reason I found so few is because the tide was high, so I was not able to pull what are usually, but not always legacy trash from many years ago.
Rather, I only scanned the shore. Still, finding only three bags is a great sign. Because fewer bags getting lost means fewer bags to become buried in the mud or plant-life, never to be seen again.

A likely reason I found only three bags can be found in the next paragraph.

The great news is I found four Hog Island workers out walking the beaches with bags in hand, picking up trash!

I was pleasantly amazed.

Spoke with two of them, shared info on where I find particular items and thanked them again and again.

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Hog Island Oyster worker on trash patrol, Tom's Point - Tomales Bay

Hog Island Oyster worker on trash patrol, Tom’s Point – Tomales Bay

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When I explained the large wooden rack mess left in place by the brother of Charlie Johnson (who long ago raised oysters in this area) to one of them, he said that Hog might be interested in removing the hundreds of vertical pilings from the bay. I told him that the NPS was in the process of hiring a firm to remove over 5 lineal miles of racks from Drakes Estero and that the techniques learned would likely be transferable.

These Hog guys told me they had been coming out every two weeks for a while now, which is fantastic.

Come winter time, with harsher weather, this schedule will really pay off in keeping lost gear from being entombed in the wetlands and bay bottom, or pulled out into the Pacific Ocean.

A great day indeed.

Prediction: more jobs at oyster farms as the importance of regularly patrolling the shores of the bay, as well as the lease and non-lease areas of the bay become evident.

So stoked was I, that the next nearly 3 hours was spent pulling out one of several large plots of invasive ice plant, creating a pile almost six feet high for the Audubon people that own the land.

As always, click an image to see a larger version.

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Large pile of ice plant pulled out by one coastodian

Large pile of ice plant pulled out by one coastodian

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Large pile of ice plant pulled out by one coastodian

Large pile of ice plant pulled out by one coastodian

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View of Tomales Bay from Tom's Point

View of Tomales Bay from Tom’s Point

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Next related post may be found here.

Previous related post may be found here.

See the first post in this series “Save our Tomales Bay” here.

Save our Tomales Bay – Part 25 Why?

Click the words above “Save our Tomales Bay – Part 25 Why?” to see this entire post.

Over the years I’ve packed thousands of pounds of trash off the beaches of Point Reyes National Seashore and Tomales Bay, one question asked of me often is:

Where does this stuff come from?

Initially, when I found a plastic water bottle labeled “Made in China”, I thought that it had floated from China to make landfall on Pierce Point for me to find and remove.

Then something happened that changed my mind.

During 2010, the craziest year for trash I have ever seen, I cleaned the 2+ mile portion of Point Reyes Beach between North Beach parking lot and South Beach parking lot.

I cleaned it not once, not twice, but three days in a row.

Each day it looked as bad, if not worse than the day before.

On the third day, I found two identical, pristine water bottles from China. By pristine, I mean they looked as if someone had just come from Palace Market, drank the water, then dropped them on the beach.

Brand new.

Not covered with goose-neck barnacles or bryozoan as would a bottle that had spent months or years bobbing around the Pacific Ocean.

Gooseneck barnacle encrusted plastic water bottle - South Beach, 7 June, 2010

Gooseneck barnacle encrusted plastic water bottle – South Beach, 7 June, 2010

These new bottles I’d found hadn’t drifted over from China on their own.

They had likely been tossed overboard by a crew-member of one of the thousands of container ships that bring countless millions of tons of cheap diversions to the world each year.

After contacting the Port of Oakland, I learned the following about container ships visiting Oakland:

       Only 19 hours or less to unload and load all the containers from one enormous ship.
       See here for a time lapse video of the loading of 18,000 containers.

       Less than 20 crew, most from the Philippines.

For a few months I tried to get my “Thirsty” image of 5 large meta-bottles hung in the room where this crew stays during unloading/loading. The woman with whom I spoke at the Port of Oakland really wanted to do this, but her superiors got in the way and in the end I failed in my attempt to educate the crews of these ships to not toss their trash into the sea.

BUT

I learned something that day.

I never really now where the litter I find comes from, I only know where it ends up.

Which is mostly true.

Mostly, because I know where the 6000+ black plastic spacer tubes I have picked up came from (Drakes Estero – oyster farming operations)

I know where the oyster grow-out bags come from.

Abandoned grow-out bags from Tomales Bay Oyster Company returned to them.

Abandoned grow-out bags from Tomales Bay Oyster Company returned to them.

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©Richard James - coastodian.org Abandoned Hog Island Oysters grow-out bags collected adjacent to lease M-430-15 on 22 March, 2015

©Richard James – coastodian.org
Abandoned Hog Island Oysters grow-out bags collected adjacent to lease M-430-15 on 22 March, 2015

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I know where the thousands upon thousands of plastic zip-ties and lengths of plastic coated copper wire and plastic floats pecked by hungry birds that are discarded into Tomales Bay come from.

TBOC oyster bag float, pecked by birds looking for food. Zip-ties, blue foam bits of all sizes and the black plastic cover can be found by the thousands all around Tomales Bay.

TBOC oyster bag float, pecked by birds looking for food.
Zip-ties, blue foam bits of all sizes and the black plastic cover can be found by the thousands all around Tomales Bay.

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Small fraction of the zip-ties (en español: los cinchos) collected from leases of TBOC

Small fraction of the zip-ties (en español: los cinchos) collected from leases of TBOC

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Small fraction of the plastic coated copper wire (en español: cables) collected from leases of TBOC

Small fraction of the plastic coated copper wire (en español: cables) collected from leases of TBOC

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Tiny fraction of the discarded PVC pipes and pipe shards left by TBOC in Tomales Bay

Tiny fraction of the discarded PVC pipes and pipe shards left by TBOC in Tomales Bay

They come from the growers of oysters, clams and mussels in Tomales Bay.

I may not be able to stop the people around the world from polluting our planet.

But I will do all I can in my local area to stop the rampant disregard for the Tomales Bay by local oyster, clam and mussel growers.

And until these growers stop polluting the earth with their trash,

until the Fish & Game Commission takes its responsibility as the “landlord” of these public waters seriously,

I’ll continue to boat the bay and walk the shore, picking up their mess and reporting on it, just as I found it.

If, when I go boating on the bay, all I see are godwits, dowitchers and willets, that is what I’ll share with photos and words.

The true "owners" of Tomales Bay.

The true “owners” of Tomales Bay.

So growers, if you don’t wish to read about your mess, stop making one.


Three leases are coming up for renewal soon. Leases that, as written are pretty loose in terms of holding these companies responsible for the mess they make on a daily basis.

It will end up costing US tax payers more than a few million dollars to clean up the mess left by Johnsons / Drakes Bay Oyster Company in Drakes Estero.

The escrow fund language used in the current leases is over 25 years old. We need a contract worthy of the land it is designed to protect!

If you’d like to see the leases re-written so that growers pay fines if they leave a mess,

If you’d like to see the Fish & Wildlife Department more actively monitor the activities of growers that have made a mess of Tomales Bay for over a hundred years

If you’d like to take an active role in protecting the environment of West Marin

Write Sonke Mastrup, the Executive Director of the California Fish & Game Commission and tell him so.

You can reach him here:

Mr. Sonke Mastrup
Executive Director, Fish and Game Commission
fgc@fgc.ca.gov
phone 916-653-4899

California Fish and Game Commission P.O. Box 944209, Sacramento, CA 94244-2090

Please also ask him when he plans to hold the public meeting in West Marin so that the public can weigh in on how the public lands are being treated (mistreated).

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Next related post may be found here>.

Previous related post may be found here.

See the first post in this series “Save our Tomales Bay” here.

Save our Tomales Bay – Part 24 Whence cometh the detritus

Click on the words above “Save our Tomales Bay – Part 24 Whence cometh the detritus” to see this entire post.

Over the past few years of working with local oyster farmers to improve their processes in order to leave less trash in our local waters, I’ve heard them say more than once “When we go out on our yearly trash pickups, we always find more non-oyster trash than oyster farm trash.”

Let’s look at this statement in more detail.

Yearly litter pickups.

Look at the image below of a grow-out bag nearly obscured by pickleweed in less than 3 weeks at the mouth of Walker Creek.

click on image, then click once more to see a much larger version.

This bag lay here for less than three weeks!

This bag lay here for less than three weeks!

Imagine if the growers came out a year later to look for this bag. Do you think they would have found it?

I had scoured this same area less than three weeks previously and that bag was not there.

No wonder the growers don’t find much oyster trash on their yearly cleanups, nature has enveloped their mess, making it invisible to their efforts.

Growers need to go out every two weeks in order to keep their mess from becoming a permanent part of the very same ecosystem they extract profit from. They need to walk the shores, as I do. At Hog Island Oysters and Tomales Bay Oyster Company, efforts to redesign gear to avoid these losses are underway, a good thing.

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Now let’s look at my cleanup efforts from two consecutive weeks along the shore from Preston Point to the fence at the Audubon Canyon parcel at Tom’s Point, as well as a small section of the Point Reyes Oyster Company lease at Walker Creek.

NOTE: click on an image, then click once more to see a much larger version.

May 3rd

Alleged non-oyster litter collected on 3 May, 2015 along coast from Preston Point to Audubon Canyon Ranch parcel.

Alleged non-oyster litter collected on 3 May, 2015 along coast from Preston Point to Audubon Canyon Ranch parcel.

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Alleged oyster litter collected on 3 May, 2015 along coast from Preston Point to Audubon Canyon Ranch parcel.  Large zip ties found on beach adjacent to Hog Island lease at Tom's Point. 53 abandoned oyster grow-out bags were also located, 26 of which hauled out.

Alleged oyster litter collected on 3 May, 2015 along coast from Preston Point to Audubon Canyon Ranch parcel. Large zip ties found on beach adjacent to Hog Island lease at Tom’s Point. 53 abandoned oyster grow-out bags were also located, 26 of which hauled out.


To the above items, add 53 grow-out bags, a very large volume of high-density polyethylene being ground into tiny bits by sand, wave and wind.

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May 10th

Alleged non-oyster litter collected on 10 May, 2015 along coast from Preston Point to Audubon Canyon Ranch parcel.

Alleged non-oyster litter collected on 10 May, 2015 along coast from Preston Point to Audubon Canyon Ranch parcel.

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Alleged oyster litter collected on 10 May, 2015 along coast from Preston Point to Audubon Canyon Ranch parcel.  Plastic coated copper wire found under Point Reyes Oyster Company racks, large zip ties found on beach adjacent to Hog Island lease at Tom's Point. 154 abandoned oyster grow-out bags were also located, 41 of which hauled out.

Alleged oyster litter collected on 10 May, 2015 along coast from Preston Point to Audubon Canyon Ranch parcel. Plastic coated copper wire found under Point Reyes Oyster Company racks, large zip ties found on beach adjacent to Hog Island lease at Tom’s Point. 154 abandoned oyster grow-out bags were also located, 41 of which hauled out.


To the above items, add 154 grow-out bags, a very large volume of high-density polyethylene being ground into tiny bits by sand, wave and wind.

The ratio of “tourist” trash to oyster trash varies over the year, depending on weather and visitation.

If you don’t look for it, you won’t find it! Oyster growers need to get out of their boats more often, they will find what I find if they are willing to walk the shore and mudflats and look.
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A list of proposed best practices I drew up was submitted to the Fish & Game Commission in April at their meeting in Santa Rosa. Both Hog Island Oysters and Tomales Bay Oyster Company are in the process of redesigning their gear, both of which I applaud. With better gear to withstand the beating doled out by sun, wind and waves, less of this gear will go missing, which means a healthier ecosystem for all.

Let’s hope this trend continues, for earth’s sake.

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Next related post may be found here.

Previous related post may be found here.

See the first post in this series “Save our Tomales Bay” here.

Save our Tomales Bay – Request for boaters to remove ice plant from Tom’s Point

Hello all,

In my travels around Tomales Bay monitoring and removing the trash (most of it new and legacy oyster farming trash), I have come across several large plots of invasive ice plant (Carpobrotus edulis) that need to be removed.

Plan to put your boat in at Nick’s Cove (AKA Miller Boat Launch) and paddle north a little over 2 miles to the southern shore of Tom’s Point.

Folks from Audubon Canyon Ranch will meet us there with bags and gloves and lunch!

We’ll spend a few hours pulling out as much of this plant as we can, break for lunch, then work a little longer to wait for the flood tide to help us back to Nick’s.

Date TBD, it will be on a weekend. Likely late June or July after the 4th.

IMG_5338.crop.cc.cw

Bring

$5 to pay for your parking permit
Clothing to wear while onshore, pulling plants
– long sleeve shirt, long pants, hat
light hiking shoes
sunscreen
water
snacks

Please write to express interest [richard@coastodian.org].

Once a firm date has been selected, I’ll contact all interested parties with details.

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IMG_5162.crop.cc

Save our Tomales Bay – Part 23 Bullshitter caught in the act!

Click on the words above “Save our Tomales Bay – Part 23 Bullshitter caught in the act!” to see this entire post.

On 16 May as I walked the shore near Tom’s Point and the oyster leases operated by Hog Island Oysters picking up zip-ties, grow out bags, discarded lumber and the occasional piece of non-oyster related trash, I was startled as this large bull burst forth on the hillside above me.

He snorted and stared at me, making sure I knew whose beach this was.

Then he sauntered off into the water, defecated, continuing on around this very long fence jutting out into Tomales Bay.

When the scent of lady cows in estrus is in the air, no string of wire will keep this bull from his appointed rounds.

Maybe that brownish/yellowish stuff is what give the local oysters their shittoir.

Off in the distance in this video are strings of hundreds of bags of oysters filter-feeding in the nutrient-rich waters of Tomales Bay.

It is not just the guys pooping in our local waters.

Have a look at these ladies that regularly relieve themselves in and around Drakes Estero (image from a few years ago)

RJames.IMG_4541.CC.cwRJames.IMG_4560.crop.cc.cwIs this the secret ingredient of the non-native oysters that were once raised in Drakes Estero?

 

Speaking of bullshit, stay tuned for more images of the steady supply of plastic left in Tomales Bay by oyster farmers of present and past.

Local growers are making efforts to reduce the debris abandoned to the watershed. I applaud and encourage these and more efforts.

Enough of an effort?

Perhaps when the Fish & Game Commission hosts the public meeting in West Marin they promised me is coming, we’ll all find out.

Until then, let the chips fall where they may.

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Next related post may be found here.

Previous related post may be found here.

See the first post in this series “Save our Tomales Bay” here.

Save our Tomales Bay – Part 22 Leasewalk M430-17, Point Reyes Oyster Company

Click the words above “Save our Tomales Bay – Part 22 Leasewalk M430-17…” to see this entire post.

On 14 March I paid a visit to the large lease operated by Point Reyes Oyster Company (PROC) at the mouth of Walker Creek.

Below you can see some images showing the state of this leased area on that day.

I have lifted and shaken many bags on this lease, and as far as I can tell, all the oysters in these bags are dead.

Other oyster growers may be dropping zip ties by the thousands into Tomales Bay, but Point Reyes Oyster Company seems to prefer to drop plastic coated copper wire with the same fervor.

Can all this plastic and copper be good for the native organisms living (trying to live) in Tomales Bay?

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Area in bright polygon depicts lease M-430-17, the area shown in the images below.

Area in bright polygon depicts lease M-430-17, the area shown in the images below.

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Grow-out bags laying in the mud, racks in a state of disrepair on lease M-430-17, run by Point Reyes Oyster Company.

Grow-out bags laying in the mud, racks in a state of disrepair on lease M-430-17, run by Point Reyes Oyster Company.

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About 20 pounds of plastic coated copper wire i picked up from under the racks, laying in the mud on lease M-430-17, run by Point Reyes Oyster Company.

About 20 pounds of plastic coated copper wire i picked up from under the racks, laying in the mud on lease M-430-17, run by Point Reyes Oyster Company.

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Mystery cloth serving unknown purpose (other than littering) on lease M-430-17, run by Point Reyes Oyster Company.

Mystery cloth serving unknown purpose (other than littering) on lease M-430-17, run by Point Reyes Oyster Company.

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Mystery cloth serving unknown purpose (other than littering) on lease M-430-17, run by Point Reyes Oyster Company.

Mystery cloth serving unknown purpose (other than littering) on lease M-430-17, run by Point Reyes Oyster Company.

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Mystery cloth serving unknown purpose (other than littering) on lease M-430-17, run by Point Reyes Oyster Company.

Mystery cloth serving unknown purpose (other than littering) on lease M-430-17, run by Point Reyes Oyster Company.

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Abandoned grow-out bag laying in the mud on lease M-430-17, run by Point Reyes Oyster Company.

Abandoned grow-out bag laying in the mud on lease M-430-17, run by Point Reyes Oyster Company.

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Abandoned grow-out bag laying in the mud on lease M-430-17, run by Point Reyes Oyster Company.

Abandoned grow-out bag laying in the mud on lease M-430-17, run by Point Reyes Oyster Company.

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Grow-out bags laying in the mud on lease M-430-17, run by Point Reyes Oyster Company.

Grow-out bags laying in the mud on lease M-430-17, run by Point Reyes Oyster Company.

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Grow-out bags laying in the mud on lease M-430-17, run by Point Reyes Oyster Company.

Grow-out bags laying in the mud on lease M-430-17, run by Point Reyes Oyster Company.

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Racks in a state of disrepair on lease M-430-17, run by Point Reyes Oyster Company.

Racks in a state of disrepair on lease M-430-17, run by Point Reyes Oyster Company.

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Grow-out bags laying in the mud, racks in a state of disrepair on lease M-430-17, run by Point Reyes Oyster Company.

Grow-out bags laying in the mud, racks in a state of disrepair on lease M-430-17, run by Point Reyes Oyster Company.

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Next related post may be found here.

Previous related post may be found here.

See the first post in this series “Save our Tomales Bay” here.

Save our Tomales Bay – Part 21 Leasewalk M430-15, M-430-10 of Hog Island Oysters

Click the words above “Save our Tomales Bay Part 21 Leasewalk M430-15…” to see this entire post.

On 22 March I paid a visit to the large lease operated by Hog Island Oysters (HIO) near Tom’s Point (lease M-430-15), and another Hog Island lease at the mouth of Walker Creek (lease M-430-10).

I’ve been mostly sharing findings on the leases run by Tomales Bay Oyster Company (TBOC) due to the ease of access to the southern lease, as well as because their leases are some of the messiest places on the bay.

Getting to the far north lease of HIO takes more time and energy, so I don’t get there too often.

Often I am asked by people “What about Hog Island? Do they make as big a mess as TBOC?)

My usual response is “All the growers make a mess, HIO makes the least mess from what I can tell.”

Until now, I thought TBOC and crew were the only culprits when it came to cutting and dropping zip-ties into the bay during harvest. I found 54 zip-ties on this day along a very short section of shore, with only moderate effort.

As you can see from the images below, HIO has room to improve their methods.

As always, click on an image to see a larger version.

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Green polygon depicts Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-15, near Tom's Point. Red arrow points to location where abandoned grow-out bags were left on 22 March. Each yellow pin shows location of abandoned grow-out bag. T21 is where I reattached 3 bags of live oysters to anchor line.

Green polygon depicts Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-15, near Tom’s Point. Red arrow points to location where abandoned grow-out bags were left on 22 March. Each yellow pin shows location of abandoned grow-out bag. T21 is where I reattached 3 bags of live oysters to anchor line.

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©Richard James - coastodian.org Abandoned Hog Island Oysters grow-out bag hauled out on Pierce Point (PRNS) on 22 March, 2015

©Richard James – coastodian.org
Abandoned Hog Island Oysters grow-out bag hauled out on Pierce Point (PRNS) on 22 March, 2015

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©Richard James - coastodian.org Abandoned??? Hog Island Oysters grow-out bags on lease M-430-10 on 22 March, 2015

©Richard James – coastodian.org
Abandoned??? Hog Island Oysters grow-out bags on lease M-430-10 on 22 March, 2015

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©Richard James - coastodian.org Hog Island Oysters grow-out bags on lease M-430-10 on 22 March, 2015

©Richard James – coastodian.org
Hog Island Oysters grow-out bags on lease M-430-10 on 22 March, 2015

©Richard James - coastodian.org Abandoned oyster rack lumber on Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-10 on 22 March, 2015

©Richard James – coastodian.org
Abandoned oyster rack lumber on Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-10 on 22 March, 2015

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©Richard James - coastodian.org Abandoned oyster rack lumber on Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-10 on 22 March, 2015

©Richard James – coastodian.org
Abandoned oyster rack lumber on Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-10 on 22 March, 2015

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©Richard James - coastodian.org Abandoned??? oyster grow-out bag on Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-10 on 22 March, 2015

©Richard James – coastodian.org
Abandoned??? oyster grow-out bag on Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-10 on 22 March, 2015

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©Richard James - coastodian.org Abandoned oyster rack lumber on Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-10 on 22 March, 2015

©Richard James – coastodian.org
Abandoned oyster rack lumber on Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-10 on 22 March, 2015

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©Richard James - coastodian.org Abandoned oyster rack lumber on Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-10 on 22 March, 2015

©Richard James – coastodian.org
Abandoned oyster rack lumber on Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-10 on 22 March, 2015

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©Richard James - coastodian.org Abandoned oyster grow-out bag on Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-10 on 22 March, 2015

©Richard James – coastodian.org
Abandoned oyster grow-out bag on Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-10 on 22 March, 2015

©Richard James - coastodian.org Abandoned oyster grow-out bag on Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-10 on 22 March, 2015

©Richard James – coastodian.org
Abandoned oyster grow-out bag on Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-10 on 22 March, 2015

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©Richard James - coastodian.org Abandoned ??? oyster grow-out bags on Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-10 on 22 March, 2015

©Richard James – coastodian.org
Abandoned ??? oyster grow-out bags on Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-10 on 22 March, 2015

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©Richard James - coastodian.org Abandoned oyster rack lumber on Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-10 on 22 March, 2015

©Richard James – coastodian.org
Abandoned oyster rack lumber on Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-10 on 22 March, 2015

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©Richard James - coastodian.org Abandoned oyster rack lumber on Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-10 on 22 March, 2015

©Richard James – coastodian.org
Abandoned oyster rack lumber on Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-10 on 22 March, 2015

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©Richard James - coastodian.org Recovered bags with live oysters, now reattached on lease M-430-15, see waypoint T21 on map at top of post.

©Richard James – coastodian.org
Recovered bags with live oysters, now reattached on lease M-430-15, see waypoint T21 on map at top of post.

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©Richard James - coastodian.org Abandoned Hog Island Oysters grow-out bags collected adjacent to lease M-430-15 on 22 March, 2015

©Richard James – coastodian.org
Abandoned Hog Island Oysters grow-out bags collected adjacent to lease M-430-15 on 22 March, 2015

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©Richard James - coastodian.org Abandoned Hog Island Oysters grow-out bags collected adjacent to lease M-430-15 on 22 March, 2015

©Richard James – coastodian.org
Abandoned Hog Island Oysters grow-out bags collected adjacent to lease M-430-15 on 22 March, 2015

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©Richard James - coastodian.org Abandoned Hog Island Oysters grow-out bags collected adjacent to lease M-430-15 on 22 March, 2015

©Richard James – coastodian.org
Abandoned Hog Island Oysters grow-out bags collected adjacent to lease M-430-15 on 22 March, 2015

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©Richard James - coastodian.org Pisaster ocreceus that was inside a nearly empty, mostly buried in mud, bag of dead manilla clams

©Richard James – coastodian.org
Pisaster ocreceus that was inside a nearly empty, mostly buried in mud, bag of dead manilla clams

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©Richard James - coastodian.org Abandoned Hog Island Oysters grow-out bags (with live oysters) collected adjacent to lease M-430-15 on 22 March, 2015

©Richard James – coastodian.org
Abandoned Hog Island Oysters grow-out bags (with live oysters) collected adjacent to lease M-430-15 on 22 March, 2015

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©Richard James - coastodian.org Stanway oyster racks and abandoned rack lumber on Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-10 on 22 March, 2015

©Richard James – coastodian.org
Stanway oyster racks and abandoned rack lumber on Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-10 on 22 March, 2015

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©Richard James - coastodian.org Stanway oyster racks on Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-10 on 22 March, 2015

©Richard James – coastodian.org
Stanway oyster racks on Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-10 on 22 March, 2015

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©Richard James - coastodian.org Stanway oyster racks on Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-10 on 22 March, 2015

©Richard James – coastodian.org
Stanway oyster racks on Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-10 on 22 March, 2015

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©Richard James - coastodian.org Abandoned zip-ties, rope remnants, float, grow-out bag remnants, PVC pipe remnants, collected from shore adjacent to Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-15 and Tomales Bay Oyster Company lease M-430-04 on 22 March, 2015

©Richard James – coastodian.org
Abandoned zip-ties, rope remnants, float, grow-out bag remnants, PVC pipe remnants, collected from shore adjacent to Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-15 and Tomales Bay Oyster Company lease M-430-04 on 22 March, 2015

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©Richard James - coastodian.org Abandoned zip-ties, rope remnants, float collected from shore adjacent to Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-15 on 22 March, 2015

©Richard James – coastodian.org
Abandoned zip-ties, rope remnants, float collected from shore adjacent to Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-15 on 22 March, 2015

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©Richard James - coastodian.org Abandoned zip-ties & rope remnants, float collected on shore adjacent to Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-15 on 22 March, 2015

©Richard James – coastodian.org
Abandoned zip-ties & rope remnants, float collected on shore adjacent to Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-15 on 22 March, 2015

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©Richard James - coastodian.org Abandoned zip-ties collected on shore adjacent to Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-15 on 22 March, 2015

©Richard James – coastodian.org
Abandoned zip-ties collected on shore adjacent to Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-15 on 22 March, 2015

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©Richard James - coastodian.org Abandoned rope remnants collected on shore adjacent to Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-15 on 22 March, 2015

©Richard James – coastodian.org
Abandoned rope remnants collected on shore adjacent to Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-15 on 22 March, 2015

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©Richard James - coastodian.org Abandoned zip-ties collected on shore adjacent to Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-15 on 22 March, 2015

©Richard James – coastodian.org
Abandoned zip-ties collected on shore adjacent to Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-15 on 22 March, 2015

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©Richard James - coastodian.org Abandoned zip-ties collected on shore adjacent to Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-15 on 22 March, 2015

©Richard James – coastodian.org
Abandoned zip-ties collected on shore adjacent to Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-15 on 22 March, 2015

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©Richard James - coastodian.org Abandoned zip-ties collected on shore adjacent to Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-15 on 22 March, 2015

©Richard James – coastodian.org
Abandoned zip-ties collected on shore adjacent to Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-15 on 22 March, 2015

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Next related post may be found here.

Previous related post may be found here.

See the first post in this series “Save our Tomales Bay” here.

Save our Tomales Bay – part 20, Tomales Bay Oyster Company ushers in new era in responsible oyster farming

Click the words “Save our Tomales Bay…..” above to see this entire post.

Over the past two years I’ve been boating the waters and walking the shore of Tomales Bay cleaning up all the trash I find, most of it from the oyster farmers.

I’ve focused on TBOC given my proximity to their ~160 acre southern lease and their proclivity to make a mess. Soon you will be seeing reports showcasing the activities of the other growers of Tomales Bay.

In the meantime, I am very pleased to share images of a very positive change of events.

One of my big gripes of the oyster farmers is how they blame messes on the prior leaseholder.

I’ve been gently suggesting to the owner of TBOC for some time that it would be a good idea to remove the thousands of PVC tubes and hundreds of rusting re-bar racks that sit idle, an unsightly testament to the past.

Well, Saturday while out for my weekly walk of the shore near to the TBOC retail site, a longtime TBOC worker showed me how he had removed two rows of rusting racks. A very time-consuming, but welcome effort.

There are hundreds of racks left to remove on the southern TBOC lease, as well as hundreds more up at Walker Creek on other growers’, leases.

But, this is a HUGE and welcome effort by TBOC and I want to thank them and encourage them to keep at it.

Thank you TBOC. Tomales Bay thanks you, the flora and fauna of Tomales Bay thank you, and I hope the people of West Marin thank you for cleaning up what has been a blight on the bay for nearly two decades.

See this post for the area I am speaking of.

Here are some images of a portion of the TBOC southern lease area that needs to be cleaned up.

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©Richard James - coastodian.org rebar racks that have blighted Tomales Bay for 25 years, on their way to the recycle center.

©Richard James – coastodian.org
rebar racks that have blighted Tomales Bay for 25 years, on their way to the recycle center.

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©Richard James - coastodian.org rebar racks that have blighted Tomales Bay for 25 years, on their way to the recycle center.

©Richard James – coastodian.org
rebar racks that have blighted Tomales Bay for 25 years, on their way to the recycle center.

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©Richard James - coastodian.org Debris from the Drew Alden era of farming this lease. There are many scores of rigs just like this, littering the bottom of Tomales Bay.

©Richard James – coastodian.org
Debris from the Drew Alden era of farming this lease. There are many scores of rigs just like this, littering the bottom of Tomales Bay.

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©Richard James - coastodian.org rebar racks that have blighted Tomales Bay for 25 years, on their way to the recycle center.

©Richard James – coastodian.org
rebar racks that have blighted Tomales Bay for 25 years, on their way to the recycle center.

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©Richard James - coastodian.org rebar racks that have blighted Tomales Bay for 25 years, on their way to the recycle center.

©Richard James – coastodian.org
rebar racks that have blighted Tomales Bay for 25 years, on their way to the recycle center.

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Now for some of the cleanup work going on to right this wrong.

See the video and stills below of the progress being made.


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©Richard James - coastodian.org rebar racks that have blighted Tomales Bay for 25 years, on their way to the recycle center.

©Richard James – coastodian.org
rebar racks that have blighted Tomales Bay for 25 years, on their way to the recycle center.

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©Richard James - coastodian.org rebar racks that have blighted Tomales Bay for 25 years, on their way to the recycle center.

©Richard James – coastodian.org
rebar racks that have blighted Tomales Bay for 25 years, on their way to the recycle center.

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©Richard James - coastodian.org rebar racks that have blighted Tomales Bay for 25 years, on their way to the recycle center.

©Richard James – coastodian.org
rebar racks that have blighted Tomales Bay for 25 years, on their way to the recycle center.

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©Richard James - coastodian.org plastic wrapped high-density blue foam floats that disintegrate and foul Tomales Bay, and the oceans of the world, destined for the landfill.

©Richard James – coastodian.org
plastic wrapped high-density blue foam floats that disintegrate and foul Tomales Bay, and the oceans of the world, destined for the landfill.

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©Richard James - coastodian.org rebar racks that have blighted Tomales Bay for 25 years, on their way to the recycle center.

©Richard James – coastodian.org
rebar racks that have blighted Tomales Bay for 25 years, on their way to the recycle center.

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Next related post may be found here.

Previous related post may be found here.

See the first post in this series “Save our Tomales Bay” here.

Save our Tomales Bay – part 18.5, Walker Creek mess, much progress

Click the words “Save our Tomales Bay…..” above to see this entire post.

On 22 March I once again visited the oyster lease area at the mouth of Walker Creek in Tomales Bay.

I am pleased to report that much work has taken place and the amount of debris is significantly less. There are still many large diameter PVC pipes of unknown length in the channel, as well as shell-filled oyster bags to recover, though it seems these too will be removed.

This short video will show you the status of this structure as of 22 March, 2015.

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Here is a view of the structure as I am drifting down Walker Creek channel.

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What follows are some stills of the area that is being returned to a natural state.

As always, click on an image to see it larger.

Area of unpermitted structure in Tomales Bay at Walker Creek

Area of unpermitted structure in Tomales Bay at Walker Creek

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mostly submerged PVC tubes and shell-filled growout bags at area of unpermitted structure in Tomales Bay at Walker Creek

mostly submerged PVC tubes and shell-filled growout bags at area of unpermitted structure in Tomales Bay at Walker Creek

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pile of PVC tubes at area of unpermitted structure in Tomales Bay at Walker Creek

pile of PVC tubes at area of unpermitted structure in Tomales Bay at Walker Creek

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South end of unpermitted structure in Tomales Bay at Walker Creek

South end of unpermitted structure in Tomales Bay at Walker Creek

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Next related post may be found here.

Previous related post may be found here.

See the first post in this series “Save our Tomales Bay” here.