June 29, 2018 — Two Salem State University marine researchers will receive just over $296,000 in Saltonstall-Kennedy grant funds to expand their project aimed at developing offshore commercial shellfish aquaculture, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday.
The project by SSU marine biology professor Mark R. Fregeau and SSU colleague Edward Maney Jr. is the only North Shore-based project included among the 38 projects nationally that will receive a slice of the $9 million NOAA is doling out in the 2018 Saltonstall-Kennedy funding cycle.
“The purpose of this project is to demonstrate the development of offshore commercial shell aquaculture as a sustainable, viable alternative or enhancement to current fishing practices that is compatible with conservation of protected species,” NOAA said in its summary of the SSU project.
The two researchers have been working in the waters off Cape Ann, collecting data from solitary longline mussel aquacultures near Hodgkins Cove in Gloucester and Sandy Bay in Rockport. They are trying to develop a concept to produce an aqua-farm that could extend 30 to 35 acres at a water depth of 150 feet to leave the bivalves out of reach of their natural predators, such as crabs and starfish.