Disbelief over Washington state plan to spray neurotoxin into oyster beds

[Emily]

Danny Westneat [h=1]Disbelief over state plan to spray neurotoxin into oyster beds[/h] Originally published April 28, 2015 at 8:19 pm Updated April 29, 2015 at 11:05 am
The state has approved plans to spray in Willapa Bay a neurotoxic pesticide that has a warning right on the bottle: ?Do not apply directly to water.? What could go wrong?
As a retired nuclear power-plant operator, Ross Barkhurst, 70, is by no means an environmentalist. In fact he spent his career clashing with them.
But even he?s shocked by what just got approved in our supposedly green Washington state: They?re going to use crop-dusting helicopters to spray into the oyster beds of Willapa Bay a neurotoxic pesticide that has a warning right on the bottle: ?Do not apply directly to water.?

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle...te-plan-to-spray-neurotoxin-into-oyster-beds/

[h=1]Chefs ?horrified? by plan to spray neurotoxin on oyster beds[/h] Originally published April 30, 2015 at 8:48 pm Updated April 30, 2015 at 10:46 pm
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Fully 25 percent of all oysters in the nation come from Willapa Bay and Grays Harbor. And according to Bill Dewey, manager of public affairs at Taylor Shellfish Farms, 95 percent of oyster growers in that area are members of the Willapa/Grays Harbor Oyster Growers Association ? the entity awarded the pesticide permit.
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Owner Bill Taylor maintains the neurotoxin is safe, though its manufacturers specifically state it?s not for use in water, and both the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have sounded the alarm about unknown consequences.

Taylor says his company and the Department of Ecology have been ?trying to look at environmental effects on other species? of imidacloprid since the mid-2000s, finding that the pesticide has ?less effects? than the one used previously, carbaryl.

?There?s been a lot of work done,? Taylor says, ?a lot of rigorous work on the effect of the pesticide in the environment there. Part of the permit going forward is continuing to look at effects, various residue left after.?
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Jim Drohman, the chef/owner of Seattle?s Cafe Presse and Le Pichet, is especially worried because imidacloprid is increasingly linked to honeybee-colony collapse disorder. His customers, he says, will be deeply concerned. ​

http://www.seattletimes.com/life/fo...otoxin-on-oyster-beds-distresses-restaurants/​

 

[Emily]

Alison Morrow, KING 5 News 9:41 p.m. PDT April 29, 2015 WILLAPA BAY, Wash. -- For years a group of men have worked the Willapa Bay tidal flats, manicuring them for oyster growth.
"Four of the guys, including myself that mowed it, we came down with cancer. Lymphoma. Two are dead," said Keith Stavrum with the Moby Dick Hotel, Restaurant and Oyster Farm.
Stavrum blames pesticides used to kill tiny burrowing shrimp - the arch nemesis of oysters because their digging softens oyster beds.

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Cohen, proprietor of the Moby Dick Hotel, owns the tidal flats and no longer sells the oysters because of chemicals.
"Because I couldn't look them in the eye and say, 'OK they're great.' I didn't believe they were," said Cohen.
There are also concerns about bee populations.
Evergreen State College Emeritus Faculty Member Dr. Steven G. Herman raised questions about shore birds.
"Ghost Shrimp, the organism targeted by the pesticide, lives in the intertidal mud with amphipods and other invertebrates that the shorebirds eat. These food organisms can be expected to succumb as well to the application of poison," he said in a statement to KING 5. "This collateral damage would have immediate and long term negative effects on a resource critical to the health and survival of one of the major migrating bird populations in North America."...

http://www.king5.com/story/tech/sci...-spray-new-pesticide-in-oyster-beds/26611285/​