CHATHAM, Mass. — October 7, 2013 — The first offshore wind farm in U.S. history may soon have company: If a proposed 30-acre mussel farm is permitted this fall, in Nantucket Sound adjacent to the Cape Wind lease area on Horseshoe Shoal, it will become the first offshore aquaculture project in federal waters.
Proponents say it is an idea whose time is long overdue, because the U.S. imports more than 90 percent of the mussels Americans consume and the country's own wild mussel supply suffers large fluctuations because of predation, weather and unfavorable spawning conditions.
"When I look at the market and the possibilities of farming, I'm thinking in the tens to hundreds of million pounds," said Bill Silkes, the president of American Mussel Harvesters of Quonset, R.I., with more than 25 years in the mussel business. He employs more than 40 people harvesting, processing and shipping mussels, oysters and clams.
Aquaculture farms off Canada's Prince Edward Island alone export 35 million pounds of blue mussels to the U.S. annually, worth about $20 million.
Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times