An informational meeting will be held at the Dungeness Schoolhouse, 2781 Towne Road, Sequim, from 2-4 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 10, to discuss implications of Shelton-based Taylor Shellfish Farms’ 30-acre geoduck operation proposal.

The proposed site is on tidelands by the mouth of the Dungeness River and near the publicly owned Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife’s 3 Crabs wetland restoration project and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Dungeness Refuge Graveyard Spit protected for breeding birds.

Taylor signed a multi-year lease with Bellevue’s Dungeness Farms tidelands, owners of the gun club at the mouth of the Dungeness River. Taylor’s plan is to raise thousands of geoducks for commercial export to Asia. Each acre of tidelands requires thousands of plastic tubes for seeding geoducks and acres of netting.

Guest presenters and panelists include Laura Hendricks, Coalition To Save Puget Sound; Trina Bayard Ph.D, director, Bird Conservation for Washington Audubon; retired University of Oregon Law Professor Maradel Gale, now with Bainbridge Alliance For Puget Sound and a Bainbridge Beach naturalist; and marine habitat specialist consultant Jim Brennan, MS, formerly with the University of Washington Sea Grant Program and the Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation Governing Board and past president of Pacific Estuarine Research Society.

Large scale aquaculture plantations — shellfish and fin fish lots — are proposed in the Clallam County Shoreline Master Plan for sitings throughout County shorelines and waters. That plan can be seen at www.clallam.net/LandUse/smp.html.

The meeting is hosted by Protect the Peninsula’s Future, the Olympic Environmental Council and the Sierra Club North Olympic Group.