Save our Tomales Bay – part 15 Tomales Bay Oyster Company stuck in the mud, along with all their trash

Posted on May 6, 2014 by Coastodian

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

Nearly two months ago I wrote about a chance meeting with the owner of Tomales Bay Oyster Company on the beach near his operation on the shore of Tomales Bay. This was not the first time I had spoken with Tod about the mess his company makes in Tomales Bay.

You can read that post here.

I thought he had finally come to see the error in his methods and was going to instruct his employees to quit throwing trash into Tomales Bay, make simple changes to some of his processes and reduce the amount of plastic his business knowingly dumped into the bay.

How wrong I was.

Since January I have walked a quarter mile section of coastline adjacent to his business each week and picked up anything that did not belong. Plastic bags, hundreds of plastic zip-ties, ropes, glass, rubber gloves etc. The vast majority from the oyster company, but not all of it.

For months, I had been gathering a large bag of this trash each week and putting the date on it. A few times I packed out numerous large grow out bags as well, full of dead oysters.

Then, after speaking with Tod, three weeks in a row I found barely more than a handful. Woo hoo I thought. They are going to stop polluting so much, maybe even pick up their own trash.

Alas, my excitement was short-lived. The trash was back, same volume as before.

WTF I thought to myself. Their boss and I talked. The workers see me week after week, knowing I am telling the world of their selfish littering, and still they dump their mess in Tomales Bay.

Well, enough is enough. In the coming week, I’ll show you what I have gathered from the shore where they farm oysters at Tomales Bay Oyster Company. You decide if this is the type of operation that should be expanded up and down the coast of California. The California Department of Fish & WIldlife (DFW) is pushing the “California Shellfish Initiative”. If this is what they are selling, I want no part of it. And neither should anyone else. (Except perhaps a company more interested in short-term profits over a clean environment for those that come after us)

For now, you’ll have to enjoy what appears to me to be a failed experiment left to rot in Tomales Bay.

The images that follow show what I have seen laying in the mud for years – out of sight to all but a fool such as myself, barely 500 meters from the tables filled to capacity each weekend with oyster eaters, ignorant what is being done to the planet to put shellfish on their table and money in the pockets of a few hard-working, yet uncaring, selfish shellfish individuals.

Feast your eyes on the carnage wrought by Tomales Bay Oyster Company, then call them and ask that they stop trashing Tomales Bay. (415) 663-1243.

All of the following images were made on 19 April, 2014 between 8:24 am and 9:12 am.
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abandoned PVC pipes – Tomales Bay Oyster Company

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abandoned rope – Tomales Bay Oyster Company

abandoned oyster rack mount covered with marine growth – Tomales Bay Oyster Company

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abandoned oyster bags – Tomales Bay Oyster Company

abandoned oyster racks – Tomales Bay Oyster Company

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abandoned oyster racks – Tomales Bay Oyster Company

abandoned PVC pipes – Tomales Bay Oyster Company

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abandoned PVC pipes and in use grow out bags – Tomales Bay Oyster Company
Looks like a hurricane hit a hardware store. If a hardware store looked like this, it would either get cleaned up, or go out of business.
Hardware stores are easy to build. There is only one Tomales Bay.
So…..clean it up, or go out of business!

abandoned PVC pipes and in use grow out bags – Tomales Bay Oyster Company

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abandoned PVC pipes – Tomales Bay Oyster Company

abandoned zip-ties – Tomales Bay Oyster Company

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abandoned oyster rack gear – Tomales Bay Oyster Company

abandoned oyster rack mount covered with marine growth – Tomales Bay Oyster Company

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abandoned oyster rack mount covered with marine growth – Tomales Bay Oyster Company

abandoned grow out bags, rope and PVC pipes – Tomales Bay Oyster Company

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abandoned grow out bags covered with marine growth – Tomales Bay Oyster Company

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abandoned grow out bags covered with marine growth – Tomales Bay Oyster Company

abandoned plastic trays – Tomales Bay Oyster Company

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abandoned plastic trays – Tomales Bay Oyster Company

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abandoned plastic trays – Tomales Bay Oyster Company

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abandoned plastic trays – Tomales Bay Oyster Company

abandoned oyster rack – Tomales Bay Oyster Company

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abandoned grow out bags covered with marine growth – Tomales Bay Oyster Company

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abandoned grow out bags covered with marine growth – Tomales Bay Oyster Company

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abandoned grow out bags covered with marine growth – Tomales Bay Oyster Company

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abandoned grow out bags covered with marine growth – Tomales Bay Oyster Company

retail oyster bag stuck in the mud – Tomales Bay Oyster Company

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plastic rope by the miles lost each year in the mud – Tomales Bay Oyster Company

retail oyster bag stuck in the mud – Tomales Bay Oyster Company

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retail oyster bag stuck in the mud – Tomales Bay Oyster Company

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.

Beach Cleanup, Saturday 12 April

Posted on April 5, 2014 by Coastodian

If you’d like to help remove debris from the beaches of Point Reyes, come on out and help pack out a stash I’ve been adding to for a few years.

Go here to sign up.

Then come on out.

Bring boots or sturdy sneakers, a big backpack. We’ll supply the trash.

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Save our Tomales Bay – part 8

Posted on November 19, 2013 by Coastodian

Click on the words above “Save our Tomales Bay…” to see this post as it was meant to be seen.

This past weekend the weather was superb. Nearly zero wind, flat water and perfect temperatures made for a sublime day on the bay.

I’ve several posts from days gone by to publish, but time is sparse and they need more than I have just now, so this will have to do for now.

It is raining hard as I write this, the lights have flickered twice which means the salmon and steelhead are about to make their return journey to natal streams whence they emerged into being 3-4 years ago. As I paddle across the shallow Tomales Bay, with each dip of the blade into water, I look down and think of the thousands of miles these fish have traveled since they left as 100 mm smolts 1100 days ago.

Today with water so flat and tide so high, I venture to the east shore of the bay to have a look and see how the shore is being treated by local commerce. Oyster farmers in particular.

I’ve been pretty forthcoming about what I see as their shortcomings in terms of policing up the tools of the trade they have chosen. It is with pleasure I report that they seem to have gotten the message (unlike other oyster farmers in the area, see here for more on that) and are picking up after themselves.

In the past I’ve found dozens, hundreds of grow out bags littering the shore and inter-tidal region. Along with dozens of the tags from the bags they buy from Washington State and have shipped down to resell.

Hey California, call your oyster farmer. The numbers are right there on the tags.
As always, click on the image to see a larger version.

That trip I only found a few bags and 8 tags. And I had to look hard for them too. Seems someone (TBOC?) is out picking up their trash. Thank you to whoever is getting it. If you do this regularly, I won’t be finding stuff washed way up high in the bushes and buried by plants for years. Or worse, it won’t be washing out to sea where it harms animals, and eventually is ingested by animals, including humans that eat said animals.

So here I am on this gorgeous day, thinking I am not going to find much mariculture debris littering the shore. I take advantage of the high tide and ride the incoming tide into an area I later learn is known by some as Tomasini Lagoon. It is a triangular shaped region just below route 1, separated from Tomales Bay by a dike.

Once inside I begin to paddle close to shore in a counter-clockwise fashion, letting the tide push me along. Suddenly the silence is broken by a shriek I know. I look overhead and a peregrine is soaring above me, letting me know whose lagoon this is. As I make my way along one side of this watery triangle, the first grow-out bag comes into view and I must beach the boat and go get it. This is repeated over and over again as I pass one vertice and begin to traverse the second side.

Soon I am greeted by a couple in a canoe. I’ve not seen them before and their first words to me as they look at my garbage covered kayak are “Thank you for doing this. We were out last friday doing the same thing up north of here.” I learn they are Bridger and Katherine and they have boated the area for years. After a brief visit, they head on their way and I continue on mine. Later, I see them outside the triangle on-shore with something. When I get close I see they’ve discovered and propped up 2 grow out bags I had missed so that I can get them on my way out, which I do.

Here you can see my path inside the lagoon and the locations of the 22 bags I found and two bags found by B&K.

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24 oyster grow out bags left abandoned on Tomales Bay.
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Here is a device I have never before seen. It looks expensive. Who can tell me what it is? Or whose it is and why they left it here?

Tell me whose it is and I’ll tell you where you can go get it.
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Tell me whose it is and I’ll tell you where you can go get it.
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The rest of the images show some of the garbage I picked up on my paddle through nature.

On my way back, I met another fellow, Dan, also out for a paddle on this perfect day. He too thanked me for my efforts and then paid a visit to this blog. You can read about his day on the water here. He teaches kindergarten in Sonoma and loves to get out on the water whenever he can.

The last image below, as well as the header image show the beach where I placed all the oyster gear I found. It is at Tomales Bay Oyster Company. There is little doubt where this trash came from. Have a look at the google earth image above and you can see how close to the retail operation the triangle lagoon is.

It was a busy day there, yet only a couple people came down to ask me what this stuff was and why I was dumping it on the beach. You can be sure that I explained in detail what it was and where I had found it.

Both people asked me if I worked for the oyster place. No, was my reply. Do they pay you? Again, no was my reply. One asked me why the oyster place did not pick up the trash. I don’t know was my reply, raising one hand and rubbing two fingers and my thumb together as I said so.

They took a sip of their beer and returned to the festivities.

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Dead loon in the wrack

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I found a kayak! OK, not the whole thing, only the label.

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Tags from bags of shellfish, shipped from Washington State to Marin.
All found on 17 November, 2013 along the shore near Tomales Bay Oyster Company. Check out the dates on those tags…
Click image for a larger version. Know your farmer, call them up!

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The earth is not so very different from the gallon wine jug with grass growing inside it.
A limited amount of space in which to grow.

When will humans figure out that we have to take good care of this vessel on which we live?

Damn it, shut the gadgets off and get outside with someone you love, look at this place we call home.

Before it is gone.

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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 5

Posted on August 5, 2013 by Coastodian

Click the words above “Save our Tomales Bay…” to see this post as it was meant to be seen.

The past several weeks I’ve been picking up the trash left behind by local oyster farming operations on Tomales Bay.

In this post from 29 June, I wondered aloud if those responsible for the mess would pick up after themselves, or would I need to find more help to rid the environment of the trash of private enterprise.

A week later and a few of the larger bales of plastic oyster grow-out bags had been recovered.

This past weekend I went back to have a look at some of the submerged bags, those filled with gravel and embedded in the sand, mud and gravel.

Unfortunately they were still there. as were the many bags I had tossed up high on the shore to keep the tide from carrying them away.

I found that by slicing along one edge of the buried bags, the sand and gravel can be more easily emptied out. But, the freshly sliced plastic is also very sharp. My punctured thumb bled profusely after learning this the hard way.

What follows are images showing the consequences of sustainable, low-impact, no inputs required mariculture of West Marin.

Have a look and ask yourself if this truly is as earth-friendly as it is being portrayed. I imagine with some thought, as well as more labor, oysters could be grown and harvested without leaving such a mess behind.

In a future post, you’ll see evidence of the origin of many of the oysters sold in West Marin to a public that thinks they are buying “local”, as well as sustainable.

All images can be seen larger simply by clicking on them.

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Above or below, which view do you prefer?
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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 2

Posted on June 29, 2013 by Coastodian

Click on the words “Save our Tomales Bay” above to see the related banner image.

Today and last week I boated across Tomales Bay with the intention of seeing what sort of plastic debris I could find and haul out.

Given my last post about the oyster farming debris I dug out of the shore of Tomales Bay and packed out, I did not think I’d find nearly so much.

How wrong I was.

Last week, a little north of the area of my last visit on the SE shoreline of Tomales Bay, I beached my boat and began to walk the wrack.

I stopped counting oyster grow-out bags after 20.

There were so many, I had to make 3 trips back across after loading my boat as tall as I dare. Digging the heavy bags out of the mud high on the beach was exhausting. Lack of energy and daylight prevented me from making another 3-4 trips that I figured were needed to remove all the bags littering the sand, plants and water.

Today I went back to the same area with photography in mind. I wanted to be sure to record the impact of mariculture on our shared bay. To be honest, I also did not want to feel like I’d been hit by a truck, as I felt the day after 8 hours of picking up trash last week.

In four trips across Tomales Bay in a small sit on top kayak, I hauled out 160 grow out bags, along with lots of other bottles, wrappers, foam etc. There is easily twice that many more in this one area. I wonder if the farm(s) that leave this mess there will begin to clean-up after themselves? If not, I am going to need lots of help.

Commerce makes a profit, consumers enjoy a meal. The earth pays a steep price never to be compensated.

When will humans learn that the unpaid compensation will be recovered one day in the form of a dead planet, no longer able to sustain humans as well as many other life forms?

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What follows are images that to me, are proof positive that the decision to let the oyster lease in Drakes Estero expire was the right choice. These same scenes repeated themselves throughout The Estero, though I never personally saw this many bags washed ashore on one boating trip in The Estero. I did see dozens of them that had been pulled out by the tides into Drakes Bay and deposited on Limantour and Drakes Beaches, as well as other nearby beaches. How many escaped unnoticed?

See earlier post about the nearly 6000 PVC pipe spacers I collected from Point Reyes beaches.

All of the images can be clicked on to see a larger image.

160 polyethelene oyster grow out bags left to the elements in Tomales Bay

Nudibranch dining on a grow out bag

Click on image to see a larger version.

160 polyethelene oyster grow out bags left to the elements in Tomales Bay

Click on image to see a larger version.

Been there so long, pickleweed is growing through it.

Click on image to see a larger version.

Nudibranch dining on a grow out bag

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been there so long it is buried

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NOT good!

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In West Marin of all places!

Calling this sustainable mariculture would be as crazy as saying The Inverness Garden Club sprayed Roundup® in a public area near Tomales Bay, without permits, telling no one.

Next related post may be found here.

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

That child, she loved the sea

Posted on May 19, 2013 by Coastodian

Click on the title of this post to read it and see a related header image.

You could see it in her eyes.

Atlas Lugged….out of Tomales Bay

Posted on March 31, 2013 by Coastodian

Click on the title of this post to read it and see a related header image.

Last week I shared some images of my kayak adventure during which I recovered nine discarded tires from the muck of Tomales Bay.

Come see the meager progress I made in cleaning up the local environment.

Ayn Rand wrote of a dystopian society in her book, Atlas Shrugged.
To me, the way we humans treat this place we call home is about as dystopian as it can get.
©2013 Richard James Photography – coastodian.org

©2013 Richard James Photography - coastodian.org

Anyone know what that green thing is? ©2013 Richard James Photography - coastodian.org

Veterinary drug container found in the wrack

For Veterinary Use Only
For vaccination of healthy cattle as an aid in the prevention of disease caused by infectious bovine rhinotracheitis (IBR), bovine viral diarrhea (BVD types I & II), parainfluenza-3 (PI-3), bovine respiratory syncytial (BRSV) viruses and Leptospira pomona, L. hardjo, L. grippotyphosa, L. canicola and L. icterohaemorrhagiae. This product contains BVD Types I and II.

Triangle 9 gives the local seafood that “je ne sais quoi”

Nine nasty tires hung upon a fence. ©2013 Richard James Photography - coastodian.org

With the rise of the sea that is expected, this may be a fine home for this marker buoy.
©2013 Richard James Photography – coastodian.org

Anyone know where this buoy belongs? Let me know and I’ll drop it off so it can be replaced.

Anyone want to help pack these tires out next weekend?

The cows in this pasture are some of the friendliest I have ever had the pleasure to walk near.

Tired & broken

Posted on March 24, 2013 by Coastodian

Click on the title of this post to read it and see a related header image.

The weather today was fine for a paddle on Tomales. Provided one got on the water in time to use the tide and beat the wind.

I did some of the former and little of the latter.

A late start also means the light is gone, unless there is a heavy cloud layer which there was not.

So I headed east to an area I had not walked before in search of human trash.

The usual suspects were in great abundance – plastic bottles, glass bottles, tennis balls, food wrappers, shotgun shell wads and tires. Nine of them.

I pulled three of them out of the deep dark muck that is the bottom of parts of the bay. Sinking up to my knees at times, I quickly became covered in dark, black, smelly mud. With my hands and most of the rest of me covered in mud, there are not many pictures from today.

Two of the tires adorn an old post as you see in the photo below.

One was too heavy with mud to haul very far, so I pulled it up as high above the highest wrack for future efforts. Another still on the rim got the same treatment. Five others adorn a newer fence up closer to the highway.

Oh, the broken in the title of this post refers to my side-view mirror.

As I pulled my kayak off my car at the end of the day, it slipped and slid to the ground, shearing off the mirror as it went.

No good deed goes unpunished some say.

Maybe I will get a little better gas mileage without that appendage hanging off the side.

AC72 – An oracle of marine debris

Posted on March 10, 2013 by Coastodian

Click on the title of this post to read it and see a related header image.

On 17 October, 2012, a boat owned by the Oracle/BMW racing group capsized as it was sailing on San Francisco Bay. Much of the resulting debris was recovered by those who created the mess. Shortly afterwards, the California Coast from Daly City, north to Point Reyes was awash in very expensive boat-bits.

I collected dozens of shards of carbon-fiber laminated aluminum and wood-fiber.

A group of Oracle people did come up once to Point Reyes to help recover debris left by another errant sailor, Duncan MacLean as well as pick up what they could find of their mess. I applaud their efforts and thank them for compensating me for the many hours I spent picking up after their fun went awry. I continue to find pieces of their boat on Point Reyes beaches.

Have a look at what a $9 million boat is made of.

From May thru September of 2013 the California Academy of Science – whose mission includes exploring, explaining and protecting the natural world – will host a display entitled “Built for Speed”. Oracle will have on display a smaller version of the boat that disintegrated on San Francisco Bay. There will also be on exhibit the orca that washed ashore at Point Reyes in Nov. of 2011. See more about that orca here.

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A few months ago I attended an art opening at the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito. It was sponsored by PG&E, among others.

The Marine Mammal Center is a nonprofit veterinary research hospital and educational center dedicated to the rescue and rehabilitation of ill and injured marine mammals.

PG&E had a plan that calls for towing a quarter-mile-wide array of underwater “air cannons” that emit 250-decibel blasts into the ocean every 15 seconds for 12 straight days. This was to map the sea-floor to understand earthquake faults near the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant.

I wonder how many marine mammals that testing would have killed and injured?

Thankfully the permit for this testing was denied.

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It has been said that politics makes strange bedfellows.

It seems that practice carries over into science as well.

Does the end justify the means? I do not think it does.

Greenwash is just that, greenwash.

Bad day to be a northern fulmar

Posted on December 4, 2012 by Coastodian

Click on the title of this post to read it and see a related header image.

Since the high litter season is upon us, I am out on Drakes gathering the man-made debris washing in with the strong southern winds of late.

Near to where the northern fur seal found me just over a week ago (turns out it is a female and very feisty as well as still alive), I came around a corner just as a juvenile red-tailed hawk lifted off the sand with an injured, but still very alive northern fulmar. It was slowly climbing and headed straight towards me with the struggling pelagic payload in its’ talons.

I dropped down to the ground to cut a smaller profile as I watched the hawk flapping and flapping, yet gaining altitude like an overloaded Bonanza at noon in august at Truckee. That is, it had a positive rate of climb, barely.

The fulmar was flapping and struggling under the hawk which probably did not help matters much.

As the pair was about to be overhead and about 70-80 feet up, the hawk jettisoned the fulmar and floated upwards with ease. The fulmar dropped like, well, a rock. SPLATT! Onto the hard sand with about 1 inch of water. The dazed bird looked around, not sure if this was better than being pierced by talons and flown away to be eaten.

I sat crouching for a couple minutes to see if the hawk planned to return and try again. It did circle us a few times but eventually flew off to find a smaller bird.

After walking east a few hundred meters and picking up oyster spacer tubes and tampon applicators by the dozens, I turned around and found the floundering fulmar being swept back and forth in a slowly rising tide. I dropped my bags of plastic and went over to see if I could move it to a less hectic place. Even after all it had been through, this bird was very capable of defending itself. I barely was able to grasp its’ wings and keep my hands away from the sharp end trying to peck me. I carried it up to where a pile of logs had been pushed up against the wall and laid it in a protected spot in which to die without the tide and raptors interrupting.

I wonder what that crab fisherman was expecting to attract with a bait bag full of tampon applicators?

Squid egg masses

I learned today from the folks at The California Academy of Science that these egg masses are likely from the Common Market Squid (Doryteuthis opalescens)

You can learn a bit more about it here.

Squid egg masses

Still tired of all the man-made debris washing up.

Did they pack all that sand and eel grass? Was Drakes Beach their final destination?

Marc from France – A photographer touring California for the first time. He has two small children back home and was happy to find a frisbee for them. I gave him the football I had just found for his 9 year old son Isaac. Marc was in love with the light and the Point Reyes area. I offered some travel tips for his next 12 days.

The Coastodian

Tag Archives: garbage

Save our Tomales Bay – part 15 Tomales Bay Oyster Company stuck in the mud, along with all their trash

Beach Cleanup, Saturday 12 April

Save our Tomales Bay – part 8

Save our Tomales Bay – Part 5

Save our Tomales Bay – Part 2

That child, she loved the sea

Atlas Lugged….out of Tomales Bay

Tired & broken

AC72 – An oracle of marine debris

Bad day to be a northern fulmar