Click the words “Save our Tomales Bay…..” above to see this entire post.
Last week, in addition to monitoring the progress of the removal of the illegal dike along Walker Creek as it enters Tomales Bay, I engaged in a regular activity when boating on Tomales Bay, picking up abandoned oyster grow-out bags.
This day I found nearly fifty. The map below shows where I found the bags this day, as well as where I left them piled up (see red arrows).
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A map showing the location of the bags where found, as well as where I stacked them so that the growers might come out and recover them will be posted here on Friday [I neglected to upload it along with the images of the trash].
The images that follow show that many of these bags have been there for weeks, or months. One sees pickleweed or salt grass growing through the bag, holding it tightly in place, where, if it were not for me to yank it out of the vegetation, it would likely become part of the environment forever.
This speaks to the urgent need of the growers to do weekly patrols of their leases and a large area near the leases to recover the scores and scores of bags that go missing each week.
The banner image shows the many pieces of plastic coated wire carelessly dropped to the mud after serving the needs of the short-sighted oyster farmer. Note that the plastic insulation has begun disintegrating. This plastic will eventually enter the food chain of the very oysters being raised.
You can see a larger version of the wire image below. These wires were collected in less than 15 minutes as I walked along two rows of rusting iron racks that once held oysters in place to feed on the algae. These two rows were a fraction of the total rows of racks. So what you see is a tiny fraction of the plastic coated copper wire dropped as so much litter. These racks are located in the area leased by Point Reyes Oyster Company, lease M-430-17.
As always, click an image to see a larger version.
long ago abandoned grow-out bag
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bundle of 17 bags abandoned north of Walker Cr., east of Preston Point
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bundle of 17 bags abandoned north of Walker Cr., east of Preston Point
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Stanway rack board, I find these all over Tomales Bay, used primarily by Hog Island Oysters
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Abandoned 25″ TV tube, full of lead
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TV inner workings
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TV inner workings
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deteriorating plastic-coated copper wire recovered from Point Reyes Oyster Company lease
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deteriorating plastic-coated copper wire recovered from Point Reyes Oyster Company lease
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deteriorating plastic-coated copper wire recovered from Point Reyes Oyster Company lease
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deteriorating plastic-coated copper wire recovered from Point Reyes Oyster Company lease
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deteriorating plastic-coated copper wire recovered from Point Reyes Oyster Company lease
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This bundle of Tomales Bay Oyster Company bags was found a 1/2 mile up Walker Creek buried in the mud mid-channel, east of the Tomales Bay Oyster Company lease
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Tomales Bay Oyster Company workers leave these hay hooks all over the place in Tomales Bay, I find them in the mud, rusted in half, or whole like this one
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PVC pipe, grow-out bag and rope collected on or near the Tomales Bay Oyster Company lease
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PVC pipe, grow-out bag and rope collected on or near the Tomales Bay Oyster Company lease
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PVC pipes, nearly buried in the mud. The TBOC leases have these pipes in varying states of buried-ness ALL OVER their leases.
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Abandoned bag, buried in the mud. There are likely thousands of these buried beneath the mud surface
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Abandoned bag, buried in the mud. There are likely thousands of these buried beneath the mud surface
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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.