Federal Court Rules Washington State Industrial Shellfish Aquaculture Operations Unlawful

June 2026, WA: Yesterday, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington sided with Center for Food Safety and the Coalition to Protect Puget Sound Habitat, ruling that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ (“Corps”) approval of nine large-scale industrial shellfish aquaculture operations in Washington’s most sensitive coastal waters are unlawful. The Court held that the Corps improperly avoided both adequate environmental review and public notice by misclassifying the operations as “minor.” Defendants will now have the chance to object to the initial adjudication, with a final district court decision to follow.

“This is a landmark victory for Washington’s marine ecosystems, tribal communities, and the public’s right to clean and accessible shorelines, said Kristina Sinclair, staff attorney for CFS and counsel in the case. “We are gratified the Court has agreed with our arguments that the Corps unlawfully authorized these industrial aquaculture operations without fully evaluating their significant adverse impacts on the environment. The Corps cannot hide behind an abbreviated permitting process to evade its core legal obligations.”

The Court agreed with the Coalition and CFS’s arguments that the Corps violated federal law by relying on streamlined permitting procedures to authorize these massive aquaculture operations without completing required environmental assessments or notifying the public. The decision reaffirms a 2019 Order from the same Court that requires the Corps to fully analyze the environmental effects of industrial shellfish operations, highlighting the effectiveness of CFS’s legal strategies.

These illustrative nine facilities at issue are among the largest shellfish aquaculture operations in a region where shellfish aquaculture already occupies a massive footprint. Between 38,700 and 50,000 acres of tidelands—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. CFS and its allies argued that these operations cause significant harm to salmon habitat, water quality, migratory birds, and threatened and endangered species that depend on Washington’s tidal ecosystems.

“The court correctly recognized that what the Industry and the Corps have been doing to Washington’s tide lands with the excessive permitting of these industrial scale aquaculture activities is creating a proverbial death by a thousand cuts. It has to stop, and some sort of rational balance in resource use needs to be restored.” said Karl G. Anuta, counsel for Coalition to Protect Puget Sound Habitat.

There will now be an opportunity for defendants to object to the decision through the district court in the next two weeks, but absent reversal, the unlawful permits will be judicially struck down as null and void within 60 days per the Court’s order. The Corps will then be required to conduct the proper environmental assessment and public notice process it should have completed before authorizing these operations. CFS and the Coalition will continue to watchdog the Corps’ compliance and advocate for a permitting process that is transparent, science-based, and accountable to the communities whose lives and cultures are tied to Washington’s waters.

CFS is one of the only national environmental groups working to limit the impacts of harmful industrial shellfish aquaculture operations. In 2019, we and the Coalition secured a landmark ruling protecting Washington’s iconic coastlines from expanding industrial shellfish aquaculture. This work is part of CFS’s broader campaign to ensure that the expansion of both finfish and shellfish industrial aquaculture doesn’t come at the cost of ecological integrity, tribal sovereignty, or the public’s right to clean and accessible shorelines.

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