Too soon to shellebrate

Environmentalists sue over oyster farm

A tribal biologist adjusts a mesh bag full of oysters on Sequim Bay. (Photo courtesy Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission)

Three environmental groups say that the US Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) did not complete the required “compatibility determination” before greenlighting Jamestown Tribe’s commercial oyster farming operation proposed within the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge (“The Spit” to locals).

Sequim’s Protect the Peninsula’s Future and the Coalition to Protect Puget Sound Habitat have joined the national nonprofit Beyond Pesticides in challenging USFWS in US Western District Court. They are asking for a compatibility determination that accurately states the commercial oyster farm’s impact on the Refuge. The USFWS/Department of Interior asked the court to dismiss the case, but the Federal District Court denied their request.

However, the Jamestown Tribe is still planning to take over management of the Refuge in two days — August 16th. “We could run this refuge better than you,” Jamestown Tribe CEO Ron Allen told the Sequim Gazette while discussing the pushback the Tribe has received about its proposed 50-acre commercial oyster farm within the Refuge.

Allen explained that the Refuge would remain open to the public, but other changes are being considered. Tiny homes may be added for volunteer housing, and the Tribe is looking to acquire nearby properties. The four staffers currently working at the Refuge will be relocated to make way for tribal staff in a management deal that will pay the Tribe about $500,000 annually.

Too much money, or not enough?

Allen told KONP, “We have access to resources that Fish and Wildlife doesn’t.” In other words, a sovereign nation can access federal and state funds more easily than the US and state governments. This contradicts a recent Associated Press article that said area tribes need millions in tax dollars but can’t get it because tribes “face an array of bureaucratic barriers to access government funds.”

Jamestown Tribe’s environmental planning manager, Robert Knapp, told the Associated Press, “Trying to do projects by piecing together grants that all have different requirements and different strings attached, without staff capacity, is a challenge.”

The Tribe seems willing to accept this challenge because they brought in over $16 million in grant revenue last year but may need more; the article said an estimated $1.9 billion is needed for all tribes’ infrastructure requirements related to climate change.

The University of Washington also interviewed Knapp during a “listening session” that determined tribal communities are more affected by climate change than other communities. Knapp said, “If you just looked at the total amount of Tribal land, you’d say: ‘Well, there’s lots of places that the Tribe can move,’ but if you take away all the places that are sacred or culturally significant, or habitat for important species, or landslide hazard, or some other hazard, the options are diminished. We must also be careful not to move away from one hazard into another. How bad would it be if we move away from the shoreline, and we put ourselves in harm’s way for fire?”

It seems that moving tribal communities to an area that will disrupt habitat for important species is unthinkable, but opening a for-profit commercial oyster farming operation that will disrupt nesting and foraging sites in a National Wildlife Refuge is acceptable.

The best stewards around

Ron Allen reasoned that the sovereign nation’s management takeover of public land is a natural fit because “The [Dungeness] refuge was in our backyard; our original village was there,” Allen told the Peninsula Daily News. “We have a strong nexus to the refuge, and we want to manage it.”

In an interview with KUOW radio, Allen said, "We have grave sites on the spit that we want to protect, and we are the original stewards of the site." He also told local radio station KONP that taxpayer-funded grants will be used to update signage because, according to Allen, “They’re misrepresenting the history and the significance of the refuge to the Tribe’s culture and relationship.”

Signage should accurately reflect the history of why grave sites are in the Dungeness Wildlife Refuge, as it is an essential chapter in the history of the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe.

According to a History Link article, in 1868, the S’Klallam Tribe led a raid against Tsimshian tribal members who had stopped to rest on the Dungeness Spit during a foggy canoe journey from Puget Sound to their home near Prince Rupert, British Columbia. The S’Klallam Tribe led the attack in retaliation for the Tsimshian stealing one of several wives from a S’Klallam tribal member named “Lame Jack.” The stealing of Lame Jack’s wife was secondary to a more significant offense; Lame Jack had not been compensated for the stolen wife.

The S’Klallam raiders attacked the camp before dawn, slaughtering ten men, five women, and two children using clubs, knives, and guns. The S’Klallam Tribe then pillaged the encampment, taking a trunk of gold coins and jewelry. Lame Jack was caught trying to get away with the loot and was shot and killed by one of his fellow S’Klallam Tribesmen.

We know this because an 18th victim of the massacre, a 17-year-old pregnant woman who the S’Klallam Tribe attacked and left for dead, escaped to the lighthouse where the keeper took her in and protected her when the S’Klallam arrived demanding her release to them. She later relayed the story of the Dungeness Massacre, Lame Jack’s murder, and the gold coins that were stolen from her tribe.

In the following weeks, settlers went out to the massacre site and buried the 17 Tsimshian who had merely sought refuge in the fog before crossing the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Their bodies were buried on a smaller arm of the Dungeness Spit that stretches south toward the mainland — this is now called Graveyard Spit. Settlers nursed the 17-year-old Tsimshian woman back to health for six weeks before transporting her to Victoria.

Six years later, the S’Klallam Tribe bought 210 acres on the beach east of the massacre, establishing Jamestown. They paid for it with gold coins.

“You know, we consider ourselves the best stewards around,” said Allen in a KONP interview where he explained why the Jamestown Tribe, which is planning to build a second gas station and truck stop on Miller Peninsula, should manage the Wildlife Refuge. “I mean, nobody does a better job of protecting the environment and restoring the environment than we do.”

No examples were given explaining how the Jamestown Tribe’s historic stewardship of the environment is superior to that of a federal agency. Thankfully, the historic ways they have welcomed visitors to the Dungeness Spit have changed.