Community Environment

Burley Lagoon settlement allows geoduck farm to proceed

Taylor Shellfish Company can move forward with its planned 25.5-acre geoduck farm in Burley Lagoon, under the terms of a settlement reached between the company and citizens groups that have fought for several years to block the giant-clam-growing operation.

Taylor and adversaries of the project — Friends of Burley Lagoon (FOBL) and Coalition to Protect Puget Sound Habitat — have already submitted a joint stipulation of dismissal to the state Shoreline Hearings Board. This will end the groups’ pending appeal before that body of Taylor’s geoduck farming permits, with prejudice and without costs or legal fees awarded to either party, said Bruce Morse, FOBL board member.

Taylor Shellfish also disclosed that the Army Corps of Engineers approved a key permit, allowing it to add geoduck farming to its mix of aquaculture in Burley Lagoon.

The permit was the final significant hurdle to launching the new farm, said Bill Dewey, Taylor’s public affairs director. “We will be planting some geoduck there this summer.”

Taylor concessions

In exchange for dropping the case before the Shoreline Hearings Board and renouncing future challenges, the citizens groups — whose membership includes many homeowners living around the 358-acre lagoon – gained wide-ranging concessions intended to minimize the environmental and aesthetic impact of aquaculture.

The groups also received a detailed promise of cooperation intended to ease relations between Taylor Shellfish and its neighbors, and the company’s help in permanently preserving Bird Island, an approximately 1.5-acre body of land that provides avian habitat in the middle of the lagoon.

The restrictions will be recorded and become part of the geoduck farming operation’s permits, making the rules enforceable by the county, Dewey said. The agreement states it will be binding on future owners and lessors of the tidelands for as long as the geoduck farm operates.

“It is a win-win for everyone involved, based upon the terms of the agreement,” Morse said.

In the settlement, Taylor agreed to restrict the size of its aquaculture operations in Burley Lagoon. It will cultivate shellfish on no more than 175 acres and limit geoduck farming to 25.5 acres (still making it Pierce County’s largest geoduck-growing operation). The company currently leases 300 acres in the bay from the Yamashita family, growing Pacific oysters and Manila clams.

The agreement calls for Taylor to set aside 18 subtidal (underwater) acres in the south and west of Burley Lagoon where no aquaculture will occur for as long as the geoduck farm operates. The company will also dedicate two contiguous acres in the lagoon to planting and growing native Olympia oysters, with no harvesting allowed within this zone.

The settlement allows Taylor to operate a geoduck farm in the areas shaded tan. No aquaculture of any kind will be allowed in the area shaded green. The Purdy sandspit and Purdy bridge are at the bottom of this image.

Resource protection entity

Taylor and the citizens groups also agreed to work together on creating a “cooperative resource protection entity” that will protect, restore and enhance natural resources in the bay. Taylor will contribute $15,000 and the citizens group will donate $3,000 toward developing a prospectus/proposal to launch the effort.

The resulting entity may take the form of a new non-governmental organization (NGO), a new Burley Lagoon program within an existing NGO, a new conservation district, or another concept, according to the agreement. Both sides agreed to refrain from trying to seek control over this entity.

In addition, the settlement agreement starts a process intended to result in permanent preservation of Bird Island. Taylor will contribute $15,000 toward obtaining fee ownership or a conservation easement on the island, to be held by the cooperative entity created in the agreement, by a land trust or by local government.

The agreement notes that this acquisition still depends on the Yamashitas’ willingness to sell a conservation easement or deed to the island, and on funds being available for the purchase. If the acquisition cost is less than $15,000, the balance of the funds provided by Taylor will be used to fund the cooperative entity.

Restrictions on aquaculture

Additional stipulations of the settlement include:

• Aquaculture is barred in subtidal channels in the lagoon, which are fed mostly by Burley Creek and Purdy Creek.
• Taylor may not use chemicals, pesticides, herbicides, processed feed, or net pens either in Burley Lagoon or in an area extending 200 feet south of the bay. The shellfish company may continue to use predator-exclusion nets.
• Geoduck dive operations, other than responding to emergencies, may not occur before 8 a.m. or after 5 p.m. The dive operations may occur on no more than half of weekend days between April 15 and Sept. 15, and will not take place on Easter, Labor Day, July 4 or Memorial Day.
• Geoduck aquaculture will not take place within 250 feet of existing residences.
• Taylor will provide the email address and phone number of its crew chief to a designated representative of the citizens’ groups, and try to provide advance notice of its operations in the lagoon. The company will maintain its aquaculture debris collection practices and will pick up piles or bags of marine-sourced waste gathered by residents.
• Taylor and the citizens groups will co-sponsor an annual Burley Lagoon cleanup day.

Mediation instead of litigation

Under the settlement agreement, both sides agree to work in good faith to resolve disputes arising out of the agreement, and to engage in mediation of disagreements before turning to litigation as a solution.

The agreement also gives the citizens groups the right to present the Washington Department of Ecology with information showing that Taylor Shellfish’s geoduck farming operations in Burley Lagoon go beyond the scope forecast in the project’s environmental impact statement and to seek corrective action. Such a request for review must occur no earlier than June 1, 2032 and no later than June 1, 2035. Corrective action may not include preventing the shellfish company from harvesting geoduck that has already been planted.

Morse and Dewey both credited mediation services provided by the Shoreline Hearings Board with facilitating the settlement agreement. A Washington Environmental and Land Use Hearings Office administrative appeals judge conducts such mediations, a spokesperson for the office said.

Taylor Shellfish

Taylor Shellfish, which leased the Burley Lagoon tidelands in 2012, has been trying to add geoduck farming to its operations there for more than a decade. In November 2024, the Pierce County Hearing Examiner approved a Shoreline Substantial Development Permit and Shoreline Conditional Use Permit for the proposed operation. The Washington Department of Ecology gave its approval in January 2025.

Shelton-based Taylor Shellfish operates on 14,000 acres of tidelands along Puget Sound, the Washington coast and British Columbia, including multiple geoduck-growing operations in South Puget Sound.

Dewey said he does not know if the company has entered into similar agreements with neighbors or environmental groups opposing its geoduck farms. But he said he is glad an agreement could be reached on the Burley Lagoon operation because “this one has been particularly controversial.”

He acknowledged that Taylor Shellfish has been successful so far in gaining regulators’ approval for the Burley Lagoon farm but said the settlement is advantageous to the company because it provides “certainty of outcome” in the appeal before the Shoreline Hearings Board.