At a recent candidate forum Commission Bob Main demonstrated that he made a critical decision during a LUBA remand without having read all the evidence. The remand dealt with the consequences upon the Olympia oyster of burying a 36″ pipeline in Haynes Inlet. Main doesn’t even get the name right, repeatedly referring to it as the Olympic oyster.

Main contends that the pipeline applicant, Pacific Connector, “proved beyond a shadow of a doubt” there are no oysters in the bay. This simply isn’t true, in fact, the hearings officer added additional conditions to the permit to protect the Olympia oyster and the evidence presented by the opponents show otherwise. In fact, the applicant’s own expert, Dr Ellis wrote, “The only native oysters to Coos Bay are Olympia oysters (Ostrea conchaphila).” Other testimony presented but obviously not read by Main or the other commissioners discusses why only highly trained personnel know how to look for an account for the Olympia oyster partly because the shells become encrusted with mud.

This isn’t the first time Main has relied entirely on the hearings officer or someone else to do his homework and in this case it works to the benefit of the pipeline opponents in spite of his vote to approve the land use because the additional conditions put the final permit conditions into the hands of the much more competent state and federal regulatory agencies.

Other testimony ignored by both Main and Cam Parry include

“…Q5. Can you explain the concept of “recruitment sink”? Why might it be harmful to seed Haynes Inlet with Pacific Oyster shells, as the pipeline company is proposing?

A recruitment sink is a location where juveniles of a species settle and ultimately die before producing viable offspring (their fitness is zero.) This can occur when the juveniles are “fooled” by habitat/conditions which appear favorable and they make an irreversible choice to settle there, thereafter being exposed to less favorable conditions. This can occur in oysters when settlement substrate (hard surfaces like shell or rock) is artificially placed in locations where it did not occur naturally over evolutionary time. An example would be placing Pacific Oyster (Crassostrea gigas) shell in the intertidal areas of tideflats. This substrate was never present in US estuaries prior to introduction from Japan in the 1920’s, is similar enough to Ostrea lurida shell to facilitate settlement of juveniles, and can be placed in totally inappropriate locations (too high and exposed to cold/heat, too unstable and exposed to drifting/sedimentation etc.) This substrate can be dangerous because it persists for decades, provides novel habitat for other (introduced, invasive) fouling species, and can attract Ostrea lurida larvae to settle in locations where they will die at higher rates than they might in more “natural” locations….”

Dr. Zacherl explains why we didn’t go out there and try and count the Olympia oysters ourselves. Seems plain to me but not apparently to Bob or Cam or the Hearings officer. This was the reason Bob went on and on at the Deliberation about why we hadn’t proven our case but obviously he had not read our case and neither had the Hearings Officer.

Sadly, all three commissioners demonstrate the same lack of diligence when making decisions.