If the historic saga of North Kitsap’s Liberty Bay — specifically how the Poulsbo waterway is slowly being restored to a healthy, pollution-free ecosystem — was made into a major motion picture, then Kathleen Barrantes would certainly play a starring role. Indeed, this active environmentalist whose “credits” also include microbiologist, author, teacher, digital photographer, parent, and waterfront home owner, would deserve to take home “Best Supporting Actor” honors for her local, grassroots efforts. In fact, the story of how Liberty Bay became polluted in the first place, putting an end to edible shellfish and the one time multi-million dollar Coast Oyster Company in the process, isn’t a sci-fi thriller as much as it is a suspense yarn.

As Barrantes has diagnosed, no single source of pollution can be implicated as the cause of the problem, but rather a combination of different factors in the “near shore” environment — from storm water runoff, to pet waste, to the reduction of organisms known as benthic invertebrates (in layman’s terms, bugs, clams and other tideland organisms), as well as the diminishing number of native plants along the shore which have a natural filtration affect.

Not one to stand still, Barrantes used her expert grant writing and scientific acumen to apply for and receive a grant from the State Department of Ecology. She is working with the Bremerton-Kitsap County Health District to do monitoring at not one, but 45 different sites. The baseline readings collected are helping to form a theory — as we lose our benthic invertebrates, the ecosystem is being adversely affected

“A major part of our project is public education, says Kathleen. “One of the things I like to make clear is that we all should know what’s going on and be prepared to make really tough decisions. We’re all part of this problem — we can’t look at it as something the government will fix. That’s how I happened to write the grant. It was something WE needed to do. It needed to be grassroots.”

Prior to moving to the Peninsula, the prolific Ms. Barrantes (who has written several grants, published in at least a dozen medical journals and authored two books — she can also converse in up to 5 languages) worked in Saudi Arabia for eight years in medical research. While teaching ophthalmology students microbiology and immunology at the King Saud University in Riyadh, she conducted medical field work researching a dreaded eye disease that was endemic to the Middle East region. At that time, Kathleen was affiliated with David Paton, the founder of Project Orbis the “Flying Eye Hospital,” a surgery and laboratory unit in an aircraft donated by United Airlines. Having been involved in kingdom-wide surveys “It was easy for me to think about doing field work again on Lemolo since we’d pack up and go everywhere in our little MASH unit,” she said.

Her research and documentation work also led to the founding of a family business in digital imaging, the Poulsbo 1- Hour Photo and Copy Center, next to Starbuck’s at the Poulsbo Village Center. Son Nicholas is earning more family recognition for his efforts in environmental education. His Web page project, called Environment Liberty Bay, has received awards from the Department of Natural Resources.

“Clean up the pollution and we can bring back the shellfish industry,” says Kathleen. Valuable progress is being made. In the first year. Don Melvin from the state Dept. of Health said that Lemolo was off the threatened list. A local tribe has since declared that it will be looking at the Bay to do shellfish gathering once again.

On the Half Shell:
A short history of the
Liberty Bay Oyster:

1960’s to 1991: Liberty Bay west shoreline and Lemolo were classified as conditionally approved for oyster production. The east shoreline in front of Poulsbo, the north end of the bay and Keyport were classified as prohibited due to marinas, STP outfalls, and poor water quality.

1991: Deteriorating water quality forced the Dept. of Health to reclassify the conditionally approved areas of the bay and downgrade to restricted which marked the end of Coast Seafood production in Liberty Bay.

1993: Coast Seafood company stopped all activity and sold the tidelands to WDFW.

1994: The remaining marketable oysters, totaling 54,000 gallons, were removed from the beds and sold at a gross revenue of $1.35 million dollars.