In Attendance: A. Baler, W. Burt, L. Byrnes, F. Dutra, J. Dutra, R. Edgar, P. Eldridge, C. Goudey,
R. Johnson, R. Karney, S. Kuenstner, K. Lage, D. Leavitt, J. Pearce, J. Pederson, C.Mancuso,
J. O'Brien, K. Riaf, R. Smolowitz, R. Taylor, R. York.

Jim O'Brien and Rollin Johnson made welcoming remarks. The first topic brought up for discussion
was the proposal by J-Tech involving a hard clam farming training program. Approximately 25 applicants will be trained in the culturing and harvesting techniques necessary for hard clam farming. Rollin Johnson commented that a great deal of progress has been made and that this should prove an interesting.

Report of NEFMC Actions:
Ron Smolowitz informed the group of the positive vote of the NEFMC on Amendment 6, which allows the experimental Sea Scallop Farm south of Martha's Vineyard. After and hour and half discussion only 2
persons voted no: B. Stevenson from Maine and R. Avila from New Bedford, MA. Now it is in the hands of the Council's and NMES staffs and their attorney's to write the regulatory language. According to
Smolowltz one of the handicaps holding progress back is the Paperwork Reduction Act. Dispersal of information by government agencies can be severely limited by their allotted budget for paperwork, so
it is important to get this project information to as many people as possible.

Richard Taylor called Smolowitz to note some rumors he had heard regarding the Sea Scallop Plan. Because we would be an amendment to the plan we would be subject to all of the restrictions currently in
the plan such as transferring scallops at sea, etc. Therefore, we wrote into our amendment that our project would be exempt form transfer at sea rule. This could still prove to be area of concern. Once in the
Federal Register there is still room to kill the amendment. On Sunday March 24 at 6pm there will be a meeting held in Martha's Vineyard at the Cooperative Extension Office. Topics to be addressed will be: how to work with the lobster men and find out the number of people interested in applying for funds offering to help work on the proposal.

Update of State Economic Plans to Support Aquaculture
Kent Lage dispensed some information concerning the SeaPort Bond bill The Fish and Wildlife office will be receiving up to $3.5 million in bonds. So far of that money $1.133 million has already been earmarked for 3 particular projects. Methods of official disbursement of the funding is yet to be determined. One obvious problem is the bond cap: Each state agency is given a limit or cap on how much money they
are allowed to spend on capital improvement projects. They can't go over this cap no matter how much authority they are given. Natural resource based industry has the authority from the Massachusetts
Government Land bank to sell bonds Up to $15 million for industries that are based on the use of natural resources. Aquaculture would fall into this category. It is likely that dispersal of monies will be through a Request for proposals (RFP) type mechanism. Once a proposal is decided upon, it will be put through some sort of review process.

Ron Smolowitz voiced his concern that if the money does come through there will be a lot of entities competing for it. Bill Burt mentioned that they have made recommendations to appoint a task force to plan how the monies would best be spent. There are many ways to spend funds and many interested parties, therefore, it would make sense to make the proposals regional (involving both private and public sector participants).

Pat Eldridge: Brief summary of licensing discussions on the Rauschenbach Bill
They are proposing that licenses would be granted for a one to five year period with transfer requiring
town approval. They are discussing an increase in fees. They had a consensus with the Massachusetts Aquaculture Association (MAA) to increase fees up from $25/acre to $100/acre for 5 years and then to$250/acre. Monies collected would be used for shellfish propagation. The new Board of Directors of MAA are arguing about the proposed fee increase. Because both groups disagree already it would be pointless to file a Bill. The major problem is that they dot want to fund when there is a chance that a change in town representatives could feasibly recruit in n change in the license terms. At present the two groups are
back at the drawing board. The town officials need to be both informed and educated. They have missed the House budget which will be recessed by the end of July. As far as the status of the State Municipal Proposal, Eldridge also plans to file generic legislation so that any town can get this going. Money will come from the town's commercial license monies. Rollin Johnson compared what Eldridge is trying to do with the MA Center of tlxcellence strategy for biotechnology- i.e. promoting a generic local policy which local towns can discuss and approve without repeatedly reinventing the wheel. Lage mentioned to the group that an Aquaculture Financing seminar will be held April 29, at M1T sponsored by the aquaculture Coalition. It is crucial for aquaculture development that the banking community acquires an understanding of the aquaculture industry.

Cliff Goudey passed out a draft response to the Council's approach to deal with aquaculture. It dealt with the response to the report by Willard Brennan. He encouraged input from those holding Army Corps of Engineers permits. One issue to be discussed will be whether or not aquaculture gear is defined as fishing gear thereby placing it under the same restrictions. If it is classified as such then it logically should have the same exemptions. A second issue arises because the legal role of the Council seems clear but they do have some degree of latitude in terms of how far they can insert themselves. We need to be looking for ways to streamline the process. Concern was voiced over how the already understaffed Council can take on aquaculture projects and whether they could afford to redirect a staff member towards aquaculture. It was suggested that perhaps this shortage could be used as leverage to offer the knowledge/experience of the
working group as a resource to the Council. The third issue comes from the imposing of rents and royalties. It is felt that aquaculture projects should not be singled out.

Subcommittee Report:
Recommendations on identifying Tracts for Sea Scallop Aquaculture in MA:
Robert Edgar then spoke about the GIS system being set up at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth He expects to be able to load information into it by the end of the month. Basically what the system does is to generate a 3 D map of an area. Data collected from a location (i.e. temperature, salinity, depth, etc.) is assigned a longitudinal and a latitudinal point in space. This is similar to taking an aerial photograph and dividing it into layers that may be superimposed upon one another to generate a complete picture. He would like input from the group as to which variables they feel are important. It was suggested that this project be tied into the 9 mile site off of Martha's Vineyard to help the study of that area. A
monitoring buoy will be stationed which should be able to serve as a source of information/data to be added to the GIS program. Dale Leavitt mentioned n possible GIS contact person from NMFS that should be contacted. It was also brought up that Salem State College may be in a position to provide assistance since they have conducted a similar project in the past.

Draft Response to Position Statement on Aquaculture from the MA Audubon Society

Jack Pearce then discussed the draft response to the Position Statement on Aquaculture from the Massachusetts Audubon Society. He noted that the original letter was not antagonistic therefore we should
take care not to put them on the defensive. This would present an opportunity to get other public support for mariculture. Mariculture offers a means of providing food to supplement the wild fish which can
no longer sustain the demand placed on it. We should write to our representatives in order to perhaps obtain funding or at the least some attention turned in the direction of mariculture. We should focus our response toward the concerns voiced by the Audubon Society. He invited the group to look through the letter and make suggestions where appropriate. He would very much like to move forward with this response. It is important to get the Audubon Society on "our side" because they have a great deal of influence. Our response should clearly address the federal mandates.

Some of the comments of the group were to point out that while that particular letter was not antagonistic, the author had written a somewhat inflammatory article concerning the subject of bird entanglement and water quality. The consensus of the group was that entanglement and water quality were in fact a non-issue. It was felt that proper management techniques could avoid many of the proposed problems. When looking at specific cases the concerns of the Audubon Society do not hold true. A major area of concern to the working group was the Audubon's use of the term "predator". This term could be interpreted any number of ways. This should be changed to something species specific rather than the general term used.

The group discussed whether or not it was appropriate to address the magazine article in their response to the letter. It was suggested that the article be briefly referenced in the response taking care not to appear defensive. The response should inform the Society of the group's interest in the Society's position at the same time offering itself as a potential resource for their apparent misinformation. Offshore aquaculture
projects have not shown themselves to be a problem for birds. Aquaculture should look to the Integrated Management (IPM) techniques to solve any potential problems involving bird predation. We also need
to demonstrate that maricuiture is pro-environment to perhaps ease some of their fears. It was also suggested that John Clark, Director of Advocacy for MA Audubon Society, be invited to a future SSWG meeting in order to address his concerns to the group hopefully getting a dialogue started.

Open Discussion / NewBusiness
Judy Dutra expressed concern over the amount of clout that the endangered species movement has. She feels that they are trying to amend the Magnuson Act to protect against any activity that "may cause"
any risk to endangered wildlife. Apparently little or no scientific evidence is brought to bear on these "may cause" claims. Judy suggests that, where there is little evidence of threat, demonstration projects be allowed to proceed conditionally for 1 year while observations are made on wildlife and habitat effects.

Judy also suggested that our group invite Doug Beach of NMFS Right Whale Implementation Program
and Tom French of the NMFS Habitat Task Force/Marine Mammals to one of our meetings. She also suggested that we urge Beach to appoint someone from NMFS to fill the spot vacated by Eric Nelson.

Richard Taylor showed us a research report on managed fishing and its effects in New Zealand. It dramatically showed how unregulated fishing and imposed moratoria produced dramatic spikes and declines in fish takings, whereas managed fishing- limiting the number of boats, managing collection, and requiring the replacement of spat, led to consistent supply.

We received a map showing a Supreme Court Decision on who has jurisdiction over the waters in and around Buzzards Bay, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket Island.

Judy Pederson of MIT Sea Grant suggested 2 people to be invited to join the SSWG:
Sal Testaverde is a strong advocate for marine mammals and is from NMFS Habitat Division in Gloucester; Robert Buchsbaum is a scientist at the North Shore office of MA Audubon who takes
a long-term view.

The next meeting of the Sea Scallop Working Group is scheduled for Friday, May 17, 9:30 - Noon, Cape Cod Economic Development Council, Hyannis Airport.

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Dr. Harlyn Halvorson
Director PCTMB
(508)-540-5441 (FAX)
(508)-540-1030