From Tide to Table
How one small oyster business deals with the ups and downs of shellfish harvesting
A historic Drayton Harbor Oyster Company sign hangs on display in the main dining area. The Oyster Company was first established in 1906 and can be found in Blaine Wash.
Story by Nola Lierheimer // Photos by Ross Osborne
March 20, 2025
Low tide reveals the beachfront where Drayton Harbor Oyster Company harvests its oysters just off the shore from Blaine Wash., on Saturday March 1, 2025.
Mark Seymour trudges through the sand, boots squishing as he treks out towards the water. His headlamp casts a beam of light across the landscape. A flash of light brightens the sky. A meteor travels past his vision before quickly fizzling out. Most people would be inside at this hour, warm and cozy, but for Seymour, there is no place he’d rather be.
Seymour is the co-owner of Drayton Harbor Oyster Company, a small oyster farm and restaurant located in Blaine, Washington..In late December of last year, the Washington State Department of Health issued an emergency closure for both recreational and commercial shellfish harvest in Drayton Harbor. This was due to a norovirus-like illness that was traced back to oysters harvested from the local body of water. The closure went into effect on Jan. 7, 2025 and was lifted three weeks later.
For Seymour and the other employees at Drayton this wasn’t an unusual occurrence, but had serious impacts on their business. According to Seymour, the restaurant typically sees a big reduction in sales during a closure. The oyster farm is also impacted because it needs to be continuously managed for the future health of the oysters, even if they can’t harvest them.
During this closure, the company shut the restaurant down for two weeks and focused their energy on doing a deep clean. There were benefits to this, such as less pressure on the oyster farm to harvest for the restaurant. It was difficult not gaining any revenue, but still having to pay expenses to manage the farm.
A model fishing boat sits behind oyster signage in the entryway at Drayton Harbor Oyster Company in Blaine Wash., on March 1, 2025.
While the restaurant has reopened now, they are still not serving raw oysters as a precaution and business is still slow.
“I feel like people haven't come back on board, because of the negative press about oysters and Drayton Harbor, which is unfortunate,” Seymour said.
The harbor has a long history of shellfish harvesting closures. Community support has helped with recovery efforts.
Drayton Harbor Oyster Company was originally opened by Mark Seymour’s father, Steve Seymour, and Geoff Menzies in 1992. Three years after their business opened, the harbor was closed to shellfish harvesting due to poor water quality from agricultural runoff, sewage leaks and boat pollution.
This caught the attention of the Puget Sound Restoration Fund, founded by Betsy Peabody in 1997. Working with Geoff Menzies and other volunteers, they implemented the Community Shellfish Farm model. This model allows people to purchase a certain amount of oysters from the community farm and get them delivered when they are harvested.
According to Jodie Toft, executive director at the Puget Sound Restoration Fund, they knew that they couldn’t just grow oysters in Drayton Harbor to give to people because of the poor water quality. Instead, they planted oyster seeds in the water and set a deadline.
“We had about three years to turn around the sad story of water quality in the bay,” Toft said.
With help from the city of Blaine, who agreed to build a new wastewater treatment facility to curb pollution, the Puget Sound Restoration Fund looked for community support.
Gabriell Richardson shucks oysters during her shift at Drayton Harbor Oyster Company in Blaine, Wash., on Saturday March 1, 2025.
According to Toft, there was still a lot of work to be done to improve water quality, even with the support from the city. From homeowners with faulty septic tanks to excess nutrient runoff, it was important to involve the community in every step of the restoration process. Through the community farm, people were empowered with a sense of stewardship and responsibility.
“‘Restored’ isn’t a finish line you pass, it’s a commitment that you make. If you’re going to commit to something in the long term you don’t do that as an individual, you do that as a group,” Toft said.
As water quality improved around the harbor, the community shellfish farm that spurred people into action eventually turned into the Drayton Harbor Oyster Company that exists today.
The community of Blaine has stayed committed to keeping the water clean in Drayton Harbor. According to Toft, there community members met to discuss the creation of a marine innovation center, focused on sustainability and community.
“[What was most] exciting was to see all of these community members come together and have a cohesive vision already, and feel in that room the momentum for the project,” Toft said about the meeting.
The commitment of the community to improving water quality in Blaine because of oysters reflects the cultural and economic importance of shellfish in Washington state. According to Jennifer Ruesink, a professor of biology at University of Washington, Washington is by far the largest producer of shellfish in the country, and rural areas rely on the money brought in through shellfish production. As a result, shellfish aquaculturists care and advocate for water quality around the state.
“They can really help initiate the collaborative work that it takes to reduce the toxins or pathogen inputs into coastal environments,” Ruesink said.
Maintaining shellfish harvesting and aquaculture in Washington state is important for tackling water quality problems as a collaborative effort, as shown by the success of the Drayton Harbor project.
While oysters are important culturally and economically, they are also an important part of the marine ecosystem and improve water quality on their own, filtering approximately 50 gallons of water per day. They take in water through gills called cilia and filter out particles from the water, which travel through their mouth and are digested. Through this process oysters can retain a variety of pollutants, some of which can be bad for human health especially when oysters are consumed raw.
Both Washington State and Whatcom County play a role in shellfish safety and public health. While the state works to regulate shellfish growing areas and is in charge of monitoring all shellfish harvesting sites in the state, the county is much more involved at the local level. Tom Kunesh, an environmental health supervisor from the Whatcom County Health Department, worked closely with Drayton Harbor Oyster Company when they found out people were getting sick from oysters.
After receiving reports of an illness caused by oysters, the state and county follow a process to close the harbor and allow the shellfish to filter out pollutants.
“When we get a call like this, we don't jump immediately to a conclusion about what food was involved or what food might be responsible,” Kunesh said. “Often we're looking back at least three days, if not more, up to seven or 10 days in a real history, because pathogens across foodborne illness can incubate for many days before making somebody sick.”
They then collect information about what people ate and trace it back to the source. In the case of Drayton Harbor, there was strong evidence that oysters were the cause of this outbreak, according to Kunesh. While the county closes down the restaurant involved in the outbreak, the state closes down the shellfish harvesting sites.
Beachgoers play along a strip of rocks on Blaine marine park in Blaine Wash., during low tide on Saturday March 1, 2025. The International Peace Arch on the US Canada border can be seen in the background.
Sun fills the main entryway of Drayton Harbor Oyster Company in Blaine Wash., as customers place their orders on March 1, 2025.
Scott Berbells, the shellfish growing area section manager at the Washington State Department of Health, explained that closures depend on the classification of the site and what the issue is. They mostly depend on water quality to determine whether the area is safe for harvest. The classifications range from “approved,” where the area meets water quality standards, to “prohibited,” where the area is completely closed for shellfish harvesting.
While closures can be predictable due to influxes of pollution during certain times of the year, the most recent one was an emergency because it was an unpredictable event. This results in a closure of 21 days minimum, according to Berbells. Then the state and county closely monitor the area with water samples until it is safe to reopen.
“We have to look around and see if we can find the cause and make sure it's not an ongoing issue and correct the problem before it's reopened,” Berbells said.
Seymour is out again at Drayton Harbor, in the same boots, trudging across the same beach at low tide. Tonight, the sharp barks of a group of sea lions make him jump. Tomorrow he’ll see hundreds of shooting stars. The next night Pacific herring will be swimming into the bay to spawn.
While running an oyster farm and restaurant has its challenges, Seymour says adversity is something people who work with shellfish face every day.
“It's not a schedule, it's not a clock in at 9 a.m. and go home at five [p.m]. It's look at your tide chart, look at your weather, look at your wind report,” Seymour said. “What's happening out there? How long can I be out? What do I want to do? What do I have to do? So every day is different. I get to see a lot of really, really unique things.”