Stopping Industrial Shellfish Aquaculture in Washington
Center for Food Safety challenges industrial shellfish aquaculture operations that threaten water quality, sensitive coastal habitat, endangered species, and public access to clean shorelines.
What Is Industrial Shellfish Aquaculture?
Industrial shellfish aquaculture involves the large-scale farming of shellfish such as oysters, clams, mussels, and geoducks in coastal and estuarine waters.
Industrial shellfish operations can damage sensitive tidelands and marine ecosystems through heavy use of plastic equipment, habitat disruption, pesticide and antibiotic use, and discharges of polluted wastewater.
Between 38,700 and 50,000 acres of tidelands in Washington—nearly a quarter of all tidelands in the state—are used for commercial operations. They rely heavily on plastic infrastructure, using over 43,000 PVC tubes per acre, as well as netting, heavy machinery, and other highly disruptive industrial activities.
Shellfish Aquaculture Litigation
Center for Food Safety works to limit the harms of industrial shellfish aquaculture in Washington’s coastal waters and protect sensitive marine ecosystems from expanding industrial operations.
CFS has challenged shellfish aquaculture practices that threaten water quality, salmon habitat, eelgrass beds, migratory birds, endangered marine species, and public shorelines.
In 2017, the Army Corps of Engineers issued Nationwide Permit 48, which would have allowed for an enormous expansion of this industry without sufficient marine wildlife or water quality protections for these unique and sensitive ecosystems. This prompted our first lawsuit seeking to protect a third of Washington’s shorelines from being opened to these destructive operations. We argued argues that the Trump administration violated numerous foundational environmental laws when it approved the Washington state permit, including the Clean Water Act, National Environmental Policy Act, and Endangered Species Act.
In 2019, CFS secured a major victorious ruling in this case. A federal court ruled that NWP48 was unlawful because Army Corps failed to adequately consider impacts of commercial shellfish aquaculture to Washington shorelines and wildlife habitat, thus protecting the state’s coastlines from this expanding industry.
In 2021, the Corps finalized a new nationwide permit for commercial shellfish aquaculture activities, but did not fix any issues from the 2017 permit. We again sed to block the new permit, and were victorious in 2023.
After our victories, the Army Corps shifted strategies and instead attempted to authorize shellfish aquaculture through individual Letters of Permission (LOPs) rather than a general permit. We sued to block the approval of nine of the largest of these newly permitted operations, and were again successful in 2026 when a federal court ruled the approvals unlawful for avoiding appropriate environmental review.
This litigation supports CFS’s broader campaign to ensure industrial aquaculture expansion does not come at the cost of ecological integrity, Tribal sovereignty, public shorelines, or clean water.
Industrial Shellfish Aquaculture and Our Work
Industrial shellfish aquaculture can alter tidelands, reduce biodiversity, disrupt sediments, and impact eelgrass habitat that supports fish, birds, invertebrates, and other marine life.
Shellfish facilities can discharge wastewater, heat, and pollutants into coastal waters. Because shellfish filter surrounding water, protecting water quality is essential for ecosystems and public health.
Large-scale operations often rely on plastic tubes, nets, bags, trays, and other gear that can become marine debris. Some shellfish operations have also used or sought permits for pesticide use in sensitive tidal ecosystems.
Center for Food Safety uses litigation, advocacy, and public education to challenge harmful industrial shellfish aquaculture practices and protect Washington’s coastal ecosystems from pollution and habitat degradation.
