The challenges that the Willapa Bay community faces are numerous and difficult, affecting most parts of the bay in different ways. Stakeholders range from oyster companies to bay residents, from Seattle chefs to immigrant workers, from scientists to bird-watchers. Each party has a different agenda and different values to consider, but each has the same connection to the well-being of the bay – in whichever form they value. In order to better understand the issues that Willapa Bay faces, our class first addressed four frameworks with which to view the issues: wicked problems, adaptive management, policy, and collaborative decision making. We then applied these frameworks to an oyster estuary in Point Reyes, California through the book The Oyster War by Summer Brennan.
When we began to apply these frameworks and the story of The Oyster War to Willapa Bay, we spent a lot of time studying the use of Imidacloprid on burrowing shrimp. To me, the burrowing shrimp issue was a perfect example of how Willapa Bay represented a wicked problem, and how policy decisions can be confounded by the complexities in the nature of wicked problems. The complexities of stakeholders, the number of agendas and ‘right’ way of doing things, the influence of social, economic, and political power, all played a role in created a problem that was difficult to define and even more difficult to solve. Much of the battle over the use of Imidacloprid was fought through policy decisions; creating and negotiating the permit of pesticide use.
The Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for Imidacloprid pulled together information from scientists studying the pesticide, valuing the chemical alongside its counterpart Carbaryl and the ‘do nothing’ option. This statement, written by the Department of Ecology, was then reviewed by citizens and other stakeholders, who were given opportunity to critique and comment – resulting in review and revisions by the writers. The permit for imidacloprid is particularly interesting because it received rather negative press in outside areas (as well as at the bay), resulting in a huge pushback from Seattle chefs. The response was so strong that Taylor Shellfish (the big dog of the Willapa Bay oyster industry) pulled out of the permit. The permit was ultimately revoked until a new one could be written.
When we visited the area, we had the opportunity to meet with a number of the people involved in the process of the Imidacloprid EIS. Kim Patten provided much of the science on the permit; Fritzi Cohen and Ross Barkhurst both provided strong push-back to the permit by means of commenting, as well as being outspoken advocates of pesticide use in the bay; a representative of Taylor Shellfish showed us the facilities and discussed the pros and cons of pesticide use for the oyster industry. We even had the opportunity to speak to Derek Rockett, the writer of the Imidacloprid permit.
During our visit to the bay I remember having to remind myself to not be swayed one way or the other by charisma or personal stories. While traveling to understand the problem at the source was an important part of dealing with the complexities, it is also true that a lot of value and emotion are portrayed as part of face-to-face conversations. It was during these important (and persuasive) conversations that I was reminded of a quote from Steve Rayner about ‘clumsy solutions’ to ‘wicked problems’. In his article he writes, “Rather than depending on getting people with different values and priorities to think the same way, clumsy solutions focus on getting the [people] to do the same thing for their own diverse reasons” (2014). Willapa Bay is, in my mind, a perfect example of where this sort of management needs to happen. Many of the people that we talked to were very passionate about their stance on the issue, such as Fritzi and Ross. It seems unlikely that anything Kim or Taylor Shellfish say will change either of Ross or Fritzi’s minds. Instead, the solutions developed should be able to consider what it is like to be any number of stakeholders in the bay, and continue renegotiating what that solution looks like as the bay changes and the problem evolves.
Rayner, Steve. 2014. “Wicked Problems.” Environmental Scientist 23 (2): 3–4.