Tribes’ accord puts aside years of tension over shellfish harvests

By John Dodge | The Olympian • Published July 07, 2007

MASON COUNTY — A dark cloud over South Sound’s $45 million-a-year commercial shellfish industry lifted Friday with the signing of an agreement with 17 Puget Sound treaty tribes.

The tribes have received $33 million in state and federal funding to relinquish their treaty rights to harvest shellfish valued at about $2 million a year off commercial shellfish beds in Puget Sound.

The money will be used by the tribes to enhance and, in some cases, purchase tidelands for the tribes to grow clams and oysters.

The ceremonial signing of the agreement reached more than a month ago took place under blue sunny skies at the Little Skookum Shellfish Farm in Mason County. The event drew about 150 people, including tribal leaders, key players in the South Sound shellfish industry, Gov. Chris Gregoire and Congressman Norm Dicks, D-Wash.

The festive mood replaced 18 years of tension and anxiety, which began when the tribes went to court to affirm their treaty rights to half the shellfish on Puget Sound tidelands, private, commercial and public alike.

A 1994 federal court ruling by Judge Edward Rafeedie upheld the tribe’s right to half of the naturally-occurring shellfish on Puget Sound beaches, but not the shellfish grown on staked and cultivated tidelands.

All parties involved agreed the court ruling would be difficult, if not impossible, to implement without disrupting the commercial growing areas. This led to years of on-again, off-again negotiations to figure out how to preserve the commercial shellfish industry and still meet the treaty rights of the tribes.

Much of the Puget Sound shellfish industry resides in South Sound. It also is a place where South Sound treaty tribes have harvested shellfish for thousands of years.

“Shellfish are part of our culture, our religion, our history,” said Jim Peters, chairman of the Squaxin Island Tribe. He said the tribe will use its share of the money to enhance tidelands the tribe owns in such places as Oakland Bay and Squaxin Island.