Saving Seafood

Crowd overwhelms, forces postponement of hearing on shellfish farm expansion in Maine

September 21, 2018 — KITTERY, Maine — After upward of 80 people showed up to the state-held public hearing for Spinney Creek Shellfish’s aquaculture expansion application, officials postponed the meeting on the spot due to capacity issues.

The meeting was scheduled for the basement room in Kittery’s Rice Public Library. By the start time at 6 p.m., seating was full, nearly 30 people were standing, and a line formed out the back door.

Amanda Ellis, aquaculture hearings officer for the Maine Department of Marine Resources, announced the agency would be postponing Wednesday night’s meeting, and rescheduling to Thursday, Sept. 27, at a larger venue to later be decided.

“When we try to schedule these, we never really know how many people to expect,” Ellis said. “It makes sense for a variety of different reasons to move it to Sept. 27, so everybody can hear the testimony and hear about the proposal.”

Spinney Creek, a 127-acre salt water pond split between Kittery and Eliot in the shadows of the Piscataqua River Bridge, has recently become the center of an aquaculture debate, where a 35-year shellfish company wants to grow their business and expand local farming opportunities, while residential abutters are concerned with the impact and appearance of the proposal.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

 

US Commerce Department eyes aquaculture for job creation

September 18, 2018 — Bolstering the U.S. seafood industry has been a major priority for Wilbur Ross since he became the Secretary of Commerce under U.S. President Donald Trump last year.

In speeches, he’s talked frequently of reducing the seafood trade deficit in a country where 90 percent of the fish consumed comes from foreign markets. One way he and other Commerce Department officials want to make that happen is through increasing seafood production, with aquaculture existing as a key component in that strategy.

“A strong U.S. marine aquaculture industry will serve a key role in U.S. food security and improve our trade balance with other nations,” the department said in its recent 2018-2022 Strategic Report, which focuses on increasing opportunities for aquaculture as a job creation strategy.

Aquaculture in America has floundered while the industry has boomed elsewhere. In 2015, more than 106 million metric tons of seafood were produced in marine farms. However, the U.S. accounted for just 0.4 percent of that total.

One of the reasons for that has been the regulatory process for approving fish farms in federal waters. Often aquaculture projects have been stalled because they’ve required permits from various agencies, such as the Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency.

The Commerce Department wants to see a “one-stop shop” set up for the permitting process, and a bill filed earlier this year by U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker would make the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a Commerce agency that oversees the fishing industry, the lead agency for that process.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Industry group pushing for more aquaculture in the United States

September 17, 2018 — When it comes to aquaculture in the United States, there’s a sea of opportunity.

Seas of opportunity, really.

Since the United States boasts the second-largest exclusive enterprise zone in the world – meaning it has proprietary marine resource rights over an area totaling roughly 4.4 million square miles in three oceans, the Caribbean Sea, and the Gulf of Mexico – aquaculture would seem like an ideal industry for the country. That’s especially true since America’s coastlines are home to a variety of seafood species.

However, as aquaculture has witnessed exponential growth worldwide in recent years, the United States really has not been a significant player in the industry. According to the World Bank, aquaculture produced more than 106 million metric tons (MT) of seafood in 2015. That’s more than double the seafood farms created in 2003 and more than 50 times the yield reported in 1960.

In 1960, the United States ranked fourth in the world, harvesting 104,421 metric tons of the more than two million MT produced worldwide.

In 2015, America was responsible for just 426,000 MT – or just 0.4 percent of the worldwide harvest. That put the it 18th in the world in aquaculture production, trailing such countries as Ecuador, Malaysia, and North Korea.

By contrast, the United States ranks No. 1 in the world in poultry and beef production.

Aquaculture supporters say there’s a major reason for that discrepancy. Don Kent, the president and CEO of Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute, told SeafoodSource his organization has tried for more than a decade to develop a small fish farm off the Southern California coast, but so far to no avail.

“In a lot of ways, what we’re trying to do in aquaculture is just growing another kind of food. We already know how to grow chickens and pigs. We know how to grow vegetables, and we even know how to grow catfish and trout. We have regulations for handling that,” he said. “What we don’t have is permission to go out into ocean and use the ocean in a sustainable way.”

That’s why a new trade group has emerged to promote aquaculture in the United States. Stronger America Through Seafood – represented by officials from such companies as Cargill, Pacific Seafood, Red Lobster, and High Liner Foods – sees aquaculture as a way to provide Americans increased access to seafood products that are both sustainable and affordable.

Margaret Henderson, the group’s campaign director, told SeafoodSource that the organization came together after industry leaders were encouraged by some of the positions expressed by federal officials regarding increased domestic seafood production. At the same time, Henderson said those same industry leaders looked around and saw no private-sector organization championing those efforts.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Farmed Scallops are Coming to a Plate Near You

September 11, 2018 — Bangs Island Mussels’ farm manager Jon Gorman heads out on Casco Bay, off of Portland, Maine, in a blue and white fishing boat named Le Cozze (Italian for mussels). He motors past one of the rafts where the company is growing mussels and on to a more unusual venture: Bangs Island’s new sea scallop farm.

Gorman cuts the engine and drops the anchor, under the watchful eyes of harbor seals lounging on a nearby island. Scallops need cold, nutrient-dense water to grow, and Maine’s protected bays provide the ideal environment.

Cranking a winch, Gorman and his crew pull up a taut, algae-covered rope from the depths of Casco Bay’s gray water. Leaning over the side, they haul out a lantern net, a long, box-shaped structure that serves as a scallop nursery, onto the deck. Gorman reaches into one of the lantern net’s 10 compartments and pulls out a handful of golden-brown scallop shells, about the size of old-fashioned silver dollars.

Eyeballing them, he looks pleased. When his measurement confirms they’re 65 millimeters across, Gorman nods. “These are ready for ear hanging,” he says.

Gently dropping the lantern net back in the water, the crew motors further out, where 2,000 larger scallops are hanging on 26 longlines. The crew hauls up a line with dozens of larger scallops, hanging in pairs by their “ears,” the flat wings that fan out from the base of the shell. The animals that emerge from the water are lively; they’re snapping and gurgling, coated with algae and a smattering of barnacles.

Gorman measures again. These scallops are on target for harvest in the fall, which means that Bangs Island Mussels will be one of the first companies to bring a mature, environmentally friendly, farmed sea scallop to market in the U.S.

Read the full story at Civil Eats

Alaska wary of federal push for marine aquaculture

September 6, 2018 — During a recent stop in Juneau, NOAA Fisheries chief Chris Oliver said that wild seafood harvests alone can’t keep up with rising global demand.

But there’s another way.

“Aquaculture is going to be where the major increases in seafood production occur whether it happens in foreign countries or in United States waters,” Oliver told a room of fishermen, seafood marketing executives and marine scientists.

Aquaculture is a broad term: it’s farming in the sea. That could be shellfish like oysters or seaweed which Alaska permits. But it also includes fish farms — which Alaska does not allow.

The nation’s federal waters are vast. They begin 3 miles offshore and extend 200 nautical miles. There isn’t any aquaculture in federal waters — yet.

Acting U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce Timothy Gallaudet said during a Juneau visit that streamlining regulations and boosting aquaculture production – both part of the Commerce Department’s 2018-2022 strategic plan – could help change that.

Read the full story at KTOO

Tariffs set to take toll on Alaska seafood exports and imports

August 30, 2018 — More seafood tariffs in Trump’s trade war with China are hitting Alaska coming and going.

On July 6, the first 25 percent tax went into effect on more than 170 U.S. seafood products going to China. On Aug. 23 more items were added to the list, including fishmeal from Alaska.

“As of right now, nearly every species and product from Alaska is on that list of tariffs,” said Garrett Evridge, a fisheries economist with the McDowell Group.

Alaska produces more than 70,000 metric tons of fishmeal per year (about 155 million pounds), mostly from pollock trimmings, with salmon a distant second. The pollock meal is used primarily in Chinese aquaculture production, while salmon meal goes mostly to pet food makers in the U.S.

In 2017 about $70 million worth of fishmeal from Alaska pollock was exported to China from processing plants all over the state.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

Mainers look to farms to boost scallops, a wild staple

August 27, 2018 — Scallops are among the most valuable and beloved seafood items in the U.S., and a group of Maine firms thinks farming them might be a way of keeping up with increasing demand.

The Atlantic sea scallop is a New England mainstay, but unlike oysters and mussels, they’re almost exclusively harvested from the wild on the East Coast. A loose consortium of aquaculture businesses off the Maine coast is looking to change that by making scallop farming a viable option here. It’s one of the first serious attempts to farm Atlantic sea scallops in the United States.

One of the groups, Bangs Island Mussels of Portland, is using the largest amount of Japanese scallop farming equipment ever used by an American scallop farm. The Japanese have farmed scallops for decades, and Bangs Island hopes to learn from their example, said Matthew Moretti, the company’s co-owner.

Bangs Island began growing scallops at its farm in Casco Bay three years ago, and could have a few thousand scallops to market as soon as this fall, Moretti said. Maine scallops sometimes sell for $25 per pound, but the fishery only takes place in the winter, and farming represents a chance to bring the product to customers year round, he said.

“Scallops are higher value, and there’s a traditional fishery here,” he said. “It would be great to expand it.”

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Sioux City Journal

ALASKA: Mariculture industry has vast potential

August 21, 2018 — As Gov. Bill Walker prepares to sign a bill this week enacting the Alaska Mariculture Development Plan, 16 new applicants hope to soon begin growing shellfish and seaweed businesses in just more than 417 acres of tideland areas in Alaska.

The new growers will add to the 35 farms and six hatchery/nurseries that already are producing a mix of oysters, clams, mussels and various seaweeds. Eventually, sea cucumbers, scallops, giant geoduck clams and algae for biofuels will be added into the mix.

Most of the mariculture requests in Alaska are located in Southeast and Southcentral regions and range in size from 0.02 acres at Halibut Cove to 292 acres for two sites at Craig.

Data from the state Department of Natural Resources show that two farms have applied at Kodiak totaling nearly 37 acres, and one Sitka applicant has plans for a 15-acre plot. Other communities getting into the mariculture act include Seldovia, Port Chatham, Juneau, Naukati, Cordova, Ketchikan and Gustavus.

In 2017, Alaskan farms produced 11,456 pounds of clams, 1,678 pounds of mussels, 16,570 pounds of seaweeds and 1.8 million oysters.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

About 400 Escaped Salmon From Cooke Aquaculture Recaptured in Hermitage Bay

August 20, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Of the 2,000 to 3,000 salmon that escaped from a farm in Newfoundland’s Hermitage Bay, around 400 have been recaptured — a pretty good number, according to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

Some time between July 27 and 30, the salmon escaped from the Olive Cove farm operated by Cooke Aquaculture, after net extensions were sewn onto a pen at the site.

Chris Hendry, regional aquaculture coordinator with DFO, says the rate of recapture to date is actually pretty good.

“Our reports so far suggest that about 400 salmon have been recaptured, so for a two- to three-thousand escape, that’s about a 15-20 per cent recapture rate,” he told CBC’s The Broadcast.

“When we had the last large escape incident back in 2013 and there were capture methods deployed, about 10 per cent of those fish were recaptured. So this seems to be a better percentage of success.”

Investigation to Come

Hendry said the licence to use gillnets for recapturing is set to expire on Friday, but there will be a meeting with DFO, provincial fishery officials and Cooke Aquaculture to assess the recapture process so far and determine if that should be extended.

This week, a humpback whale got snared in those gillnets, and a rescue operation was launched to free the whale, so the use of gillnets was temporarily suspended to ensure no other whale entanglements happened.

Hendry said there will be an investigation into what happened at the Hermitage Bay site, and further discussions once the capture of salmon is completed.

“One of the questions is, in a case of a release of salmon, is there any type of repercussions, and that’s something we would discuss with the province as we both co-deliver the code of containment,” he said.

“It also requires us to do an analysis of any type escape incident and recommendations on improvements or identifying any deficiencies.”

The captured salmon, meanwhile, will need to be destroyed by the company, Hendry said.

“As a condition of the licence, they’re required to dispose of them … but we are requiring them to take samples so we can build on an existing database of genetic and scale samples for identification of farm salmon.”

This story originally appeared on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

MASSACHUSETTS: New Bedford, the city of oysters? City Council wants to explore that idea

August 17, 2018 — In many ways, the city is the mecca for scallops. Now, Dana Rebeiro wants to expand that to oysters.

The Ward 4 councilor filed a written motion Thursday asking the Committee on Fisheries to help draft an ordinance that Mayor Jon Mitchell’s administration has been crafting regarding aquaculture permits.

The permits would allow fishermen to begin growing oysters as part of the city’s movement toward aquaculture.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times