Norment Oyster Bill Would End Local Authority

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

State Sen. Tommy Norment has proposed legislation that would keep localities from having a say in an owner’s ability to start aquafarming on private waterfront property.

This bill comes months after Norment wrote a letter in support of York County resident Greg Garrett’s application for an oyster farm at his home, called the Greg Garrett Oyster and Seafood Company, which was denied by the Planning Commission in November. Garrett has held the application from going before supervisors for a vote. He would no longer need their approval should the state legislation pass, leading supervisor Tom Shepperd to call the bill "an unnecessary intrusion into local government."

Garrett’s application for a Special Use Permit outlined his plan to have a series of oyster cages, floats, lantern nets and bags totaling 1,530 in the waters around his home. Most of the oysters would be shipped in-shell when sold, but a small percentage would be shucked on-site using a small, hand-operated shucking device, according to the application.

The home-based business would generate a maximum of 14 daily vehicle trips and up to 4 employees. In their comments, staff had concerns that the floats and bags would be “highly visible from the residential property across the cove.”

That property across the cove belongs to Tim McCulloch, who vehemently opposes Garrett’s plan.

McCulloch argues that the devices requested in the application, which could each hold about 50 oysters, could result in hundreds of thousands oysters in a residence that is in plain sight of his home. “All access to [Garrett’s] land must utilize my land and all access to the cove must utilize my shoreline and the marine structure that keeps that access open,” McCullouch wrote in a letter to the county.

“The labor, maintenance, and processing that goes hand-in-hand with such a large scale oyster growing and harvesting operation has an extremely negative impact on my family, my property, and our right to peaceful enjoyment of the environment for which we have paid so dearly,” he wrote.

“The scope of this endeavor clearly makes the property’s residential use accessory, incidental, and subordinate to its commercial use.”

Garrett says his business won’t be as large as he requested in his application. In a live interview January 5 on 92.3 FM The Tide, Garrett said he has seven various permits, licenses, certifications and leases from the state for his business. During the interview Garrett said he currently has fewer than 50 oyster cages, and expects to have around 500, though he requested just over 1,500 from the county in his application.

He will not have a shuck house or any other new building on his property, Garrett said in the interview, and will not sell oysters at his house. His business is now listed on the Interstate Certified Shellfish shippers list, though, so he can sell and ship the oysters off-site to other states.

Garrett says his goal is to help clean the Chesapeake Bay. During his on-air interview, Garrett said “The oysters I’m raising right now that don't cause any problems for anybody in the neighborhood - never had a complaint about them - at maturity, I mean, most of them are not at maturity right now, but at maturity they will be actually filtering over 12 million gallons of water per day."

At maturity, there are about 500 oysters in a typical oyster cage, so to filter 12.5 million gallons of water a day, Garrett would have to have  500 cages in the water. The 1,500 requested on the application have the potential to filter about 37.5 million gallons of water daily.

Though Garrett’s application was rejected by the planning commission, he did have the support of Sen. Norment. On November 9, Norment’s legislative assistant wrote a letter to the county on Garrett’s behalf “to make clear our strong support for the operations that Mr.Garrett is promoting at his home to harvest and sell oysters.

“Obviously, the environmental benefits of oyster cultivation [are] tremendous for the Chesapeake Bay and its estuaries and over the last two years Mr. Garrett has made it a priority to conduct his business is a professional manner that is respectful to neighbors and the surrounding community,” the letter reads.

“Sen. Norment would strongly encourage and request that you grant Mr. Garrett a Home Business Use Permit so that he can continue with his current oyster cultivation and sale.”

Last week, Norment proposed Senate Bill 1190, which states “no locality may restrict shellfish aquaculture operations on privately-owned riparian land, piers, and docks” in a way that would restrict an individual from “working on a shellfish aquaculture operation, including the washing, sorting, and grading of shellfish, located on the property of the riparian landowner and in waters opposite his property.”

It also says localities can’t restrict access to the land, piers or docks used for aquaculture or restrict parking of the owner or his employees.

The proposed bill keeps localities from prohibiting the storage of equipment and tools for these operations, as long as the tools aren’t generally visible from neighboring properties, and it ensures localities can’t prohibit business between 4 a.m. and 10 p.m.

Finally, the bill states that “a private pier may be used by its owner for aquaculture operations and the pier shall be deemed noncommercial provided that the pier has not been substantially modified” since it was built.

In an interview with WYDaily last week, Garrett says he talked to Norment about the bill only briefly, but that he understands several people in the aquaculture business have talked to him about it, as well.

Though Norment wasn’t available for comment, his legislative assistant said the bill “was brought to us by a number of concerned watermen and residents.”

“The main objective of the bill is to ensure that aquaculture is brought under the right to farm act and defined as agriculture,” he says. “We are continuing to work with all parties involved to receive their input and hopefully garner their support.

"The Chesapeake Bay is North America’s largest estuary and a national treasure. We believe that a clean Bay is to the benefit of everyone in the Third Senatorial district and we can greatly improve the environmental, economic, and recreational possibilities of the Bay and aquaculture will be an integral part of that.”

Garrett agrees that he’s very interested in protecting the Bay. “The Bay is in crisis, and we need to figure out how to clean it and grow more oysters,” he told WYDaily last week. “Maybe someone can come up with several better, no-cost ways to clean our most beautiful natural resource…. Until then, I’m doing my part to grow oysters in an unobtrusive fashion.”

He is very supportive of Norment’s bill, he said.

In response to the proposed bill, McCulloch wrote a letter to the editor in which he says, “with the stroke of a pen Tommy Norment’s bill… takes my life’s work and throws it away by allowing a favored constituent and my next door neighbor to rezone residential property to Water Commercial Industrial without any scrutiny or due process.”

He concludes, “Tommy Norment doesn’t really care about any impact on me or my neighbors or my County.”

Shepperd agrees. He wrote a letter to Norment last week, stating that "there is a considerable stir taking place in York County" over the bill.

That unrest came up last week at a debate between Republicans for the 91st district seat in the Virginia House of Delegates, moderated by Garrett. When candidates were asked what they thought of the proposed bill, each firmly agreed the authority should remain with the county.

Candidate Chad Green, a Seaford resident and a corporate attorney with certification as a commercial fisherman, said, "It's a local issue... I think decisions made locally are best for the Bay and best for residents."

Candidate Teresa Vanasse Schmidt agreed, saying that "some issues are just so close to home that we know best."

"Why this bill, now?" Shepperd asks in his letter to Norment. "It follows on the heels of a York County rejected Special Use Permit, which can easily be interpreted as a slap in the face of local government and a special action for a single resident.

"I personally am fully supportive of providing residents with every opportunity to use their land as they see fit. However, there must be a balance between private activity and the potential negative impact on surrounding neighborhoods. This balance is best determined by local government and not by a state government centered in Richmond."

Read the full text of the bill on the General Assembly website, which will be discussed by the Committee on Agriculture, Conservation and Natural Resources.