October 22, 2014 — About 85 percent of fresh mussels consumed in the United States are imported from Canada. And while mussel farms exist in the United States, there are none beyond the 3-mile limit of state waters.
That's about to change.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced last week that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has issued the first offshore shellfish aquaculture permit on the East Coast for roughly 30 acres in Nantucket Sound, immediately adjacent to the area where Cape Wind plans to build its 130-turbine wind farm.
The permit was awarded to Chatham commercial fisherman Domenic Santoro.
Santoro did not respond to an email or telephone message seeing comment for this story. But last year he told the Times that he hoped the project would smooth out the difficulties of working in state waters.
Another permit has already been awarded for an aquaculture farm in federal waters off the West Coast, but that project hasn't yet been installed.
The idea is to start small so that fishermen and scientists can work out any potential problems, said Scott Lindell, a scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole who has worked on the project. The initial deployment on Nantucket Sound in the spring will include three 480-foot-long lines with 10-foot-long mussel-filled socks every three feet, secured on either end by12-foot-long helical anchors, Lindell said, adding that the plan is to eventually have 25 of the lines.
NOAA made a series of recommendations, including the phased approach, and worked closely with the Army Corps and Santoro on the permitting, agency spokeswoman Maggie Mooney-Seus said.
"There really isn't a precedent for how you do this type of permitting," she said.
Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times