June 22, 2018 — The following is a letter to the editor of Undercurrent News from Jay Styron, owner and president of the Carolina Mariculture Company, in Cedar Island, North Carolina:
If North Carolina wants to be a major player in the shellfish industry, it needs to make it easier for oyster farmers to lease space and raise their products. The Support Shellfish Industry Act, currently being debated in the state’s General Assembly, is a major step in the right direction.
The bill expands North Carolina’s shellfish leasing program, making it easier for local businesses to acquire leases and ensuring that our state’s working watermen are the ones operating the farms. Most importantly, it expands the area that can be leased for oysters in Pamlico Sound. Currently, businesses are capped to leasing only 50 acres in the sound. The bill raises that cap to 200 acres total, while keeping individual sites to 50 contiguous acres.
The bill ensures that this expansion is done in a responsible and cautious way. Before the additional acreage can be approved, the state’s Division of Marine Fisheries will be required to first study and identify suitable lease areas. The bill does not change this cap for other parts of the state, which will remain at 50 acres.
Allowing larger leases in Pamlico Sound, part of the nation’s largest single-state estuary, will help North Carolina keep up with other coastal shellfish-producing states. In the Chesapeake Bay, both Virginia and Maryland have lease caps of 2,000 total acres. Other states, like Louisiana and Washington, allow for similarly high caps. While this legislation won’t immediately raise North Carolina to the same level as these states, it represents a significant step towards closing the gap.
The bill makes other improvements to the state’s aquaculture industry beyond expanding leasing areas. It opens new areas for shellfish nurseries and hatcheries to operate, which will help clean the surrounding waters, and creates a new, in-state source of seed to make it easier to populate new shellfish beds. It also creates new administrative procedures for the DMF to quickly mitigate conflicts arising from leasing decisions. These provisions will all allow shellfish cultivation in North Carolina to grow and diversify.
Improving our shellfish leasing program will help North Carolina regain its competitive edge regionally, particularly with respect to Virginia. In recent years, Virginia has moved aggressively to expand its fresh wild-caught and farm-raised oyster harvest, now producing about $35.8 million in oyster production annually. By contrast, North Carolina lags well behind at $3.9 million annually. This disparity is even more alarming considering just 13 years ago North Carolina’s shellfish industry was worth four times as much as Virginia’s.
The Support Shellfish Industry Act will lead to greater economic development, providing much needed jobs for North Carolina oyster farmers. Importantly, the legislation keeps requirements that leaseholders have a business registered in North Carolina and a commercial fishing license – which only state residents can get – safeguarding North Carolina jobs. Leased areas will still be public waters owned by the state, and leases can be canceled at any time should issues arise. Strict regulations on lease sales will also remain in place, including hearings where members of the public can make their voices heard.
The benefits of the bill extend to the environment. Oysters are among the most sustainable forms of food production available, filtering the water around them and improving fish habitat. According to a recent study, led by University of Washington professor Ray Hilborn, farmed shellfish are among the least carbon-intensive sources of food, and have among the smallest environmental impact.
North Carolina’s shellfish industry has the potential to provide great economic benefits to our state’s coastal communities, but only if we tap into its full potential in places like Pamlico Sound. That requires passing the Support Shellfish Industry Act, which will help us regain an equal footing with our neighbors, instead of keeping us in their shadow.