Learn about geology of spit

As one of the scheduled events to mark the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge’s 100th anniversary, the Coastal Watershed Institute’s Executive Director Anne Shaffer will have a free presentation on the forces that created and maintain the Dungeness Spit from 1-3 p.m. Saturday, May 16, at the Dungeness River Audubon Center in Railroad Bridge Park, 2151 W. Hendrickson Road, Sequim.

The Dungeness bluffs, an approximately 7-mile long stretch of shoreline extending west from the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge, provide sediments to the Dungeness Spit. These high bluffs are extremely complex in their composition and ecological function.

The event is free and open to the public and no RSVP is required.

See www.dungeness100.com for schedules and more information, or call the refuge office at 457-8451.

by John Maxwell

For the Sequim Gazette

Editor’s note: This is the fifth in a monthly series about the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge, past and present. — MD

In February 1953, the Washington State Department of Lands granted a 10-year lease to E.W. Steffen of Seattle for an oyster farm in Dungeness Bay. The farm was to be located between the shoreline and the eelgrass beds on the north side of Dungeness Harbor next to the spit. Steffen and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service agreed on harvesting by hand and a harvest season that avoided disturbing wintering waterfowl.

While Steffen honored the agreement, subsequent owners of Dungeness Oyster Company kept asking to use a dredge, but refuge managers were opposed. When the lease came up for renewal in 1963, “dueling biological studies” argued the pros and cons of whether dredging harmed eelgrass beds.

While experience in some parts of the country indicated damage was possible, the evidence was not conclusive. The refuge managers also questioned whether the dredging operation would disturb the wintering waterfowl, but after an experiment proved that wrong, in 1963 the state renewed the lease for 10 years and allowed dredging.

OK, so what is eelgrass and why is it so important? Zostera marina beds are incredibly rich underwater meadows. You would need an entire book to describe the community of an eelgrass bed. It is not seaweed, but an underwater grass complete with roots and flowers. It not only provides food in itself, but it also harbors other plants and animals, ranging from the microscopic to crabs, birds and fish. It flourishes in the spring and summer and dies back in the winter. Ranging in depth from between the tides to as deep as 20-plus feet under water, it is found worldwide. The eelgrass beds are the heart of Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge. But eelgrass is vulnerable to human-caused damage. The eelgrass beds in Puget Sound have declined by 70 percent.

That makes preserving the beds on Dungeness Bay all the more essential to the health of our marine environment.

In 1964, Joe Engman bought D&C Oyster Company. In 1963-1964, the Port of Port Angeles built a pier for the oyster operation on the edge of Dungeness Landing County Park. In 1969, the operator constructed a building for shucking and packing the oysters.

Local residents began complaining about the ugly building and pier, not to mention the stench from the pile of empty oyster shells. Local hunters complained about fewer waterfowl and recreational clam diggers complained about being driven away from public clamming beaches by the oystermen, even though the lease agreement gave them right of access. Despite the complaints, the state granted a new lease in 1973, but only for five years.

Refuge managers tried to document the times the dredge strayed into the eelgrass beds and ignored agreed-upon harvest seasons, but this was complicated by Dungeness not having a resident manager. Every year managers met with the owner and came away with what they thought was an agreement to honor the boundaries, but nothing changed. Some local residents even signed a petition, but they were ignored.

In 1978, despite these mounting objections, the state granted another 10-year lease. When people demanded Fish and Wildlife “do something,” they learned the service has only a “second class title” to those tidelands, meaning Washington has the final say and enforcement authority.

In 1979, what was now called M&N Oyster Company was sold to Marine Nutritional Systems, Inc. of Denver, Colo. This group planted $250,000 worth of oyster seed. Then things fell apart. Engman, the previous owner, sued them for non-payment of the sales contract.

Seattle First National Bank sued them for non-payment of principal and interest. As a result, the operation was closed down “pending litigation.” An Oct. 26, 1979, article in the Wall Street Journal told of a suit from Engman for non-payment of $90,000 and reported that the SEC had begun a preliminary inquiry of Marine Nutritional. A year later ownership reverted to the Engmans.

In 1989, Engman sold the operation to the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, which then applied for and received a 10-year lease from the state. The tribe applied for an Urban and Housing Development grant to make the operation, now called JKT Oyster Company, a part of its aquaculture project. But a 2001 study showed that fecal coliform counts in Dungeness Bay were so high as to require closure of the tribal commercial shellfish operations there.

Since then the state and tribe have worked hard to clean up the water. The 2014 Washington State Health Department Report lists the outer part of Dungeness Bay as “approved” for commercial harvest and the mouth of the Dungeness River as “prohibited.” The rest of both Dungeness Bay and Dungeness Harbor are “conditionally approved,” meaning shellfish may be commercially harvested during those times of the year when pollution levels are low.

The “Oyster House” was demolished in February of 2010, leaving the pier, its landward end blocked by barbed wire, serving as a roost for gulls and cormorants. Meanwhile, the eelgrass beds have come back, to the good of both fish and wintering waterfowl.

Will commercial harvests resume? Yes, but with far more careful monitoring of both harvest methods and water quality than back in the early years. Maybe this time it will be a “win-win” for everyone.

John Maxwell is the historian for the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge.