In Attendance:W. Brennan, J. Caskey, J. Dutra, M. Forest, J. Fox, R. Garrison, H. Halvorson, K. Harrison, R. Karney, D. Leavitt, C. Mancuso, C. McCarthy, D. Morse, B. Mullin, J. Pearce, K. Riaf, P. Russel, S. Soares, R. Smolowitz, A. Spinale, R. Taylor.

1. Welcoming Remarks: Dr. Halvorson opened the meeting by introducing Mark Forest from Representative Delahunt's office. Forest shared some observations on things happening in Washington, He mentioned that although there's not a lot to report at this time, this SSWG meeting is a good way to keep Congressman Delahunt up to speed on what is going on. Dr. Halvorson went on to state that this has been a banner year with the approval of the Westport Scallop project. With all that has happened with the NEFMC, this group should begin re-thinking its changing role and look towards new areas to become involved in. Dr. Halvorson also informed the group that the Policy Center for Marine Biosciences & Technology (PCMBT), formerly housed at UMass Dartmouth, has moved to UMass Boston. The new contact information is: Dr. Harlyn O. Halvorson, Director, Policy Center for Marine Biosciences & Technology, Environmental, Coastal and Ocean Sciences Program, University of Massachusetts Boston, 100 Morrissey Blvd., Boston, MA Ph: (617) 287-7458, Fax (617) 287-7474.

Dale Leavitt informed the group that he recently had an opportunity to participate on a NOAA sea scallop cruise on the Albatross. The main objective, other than to run transects, was to look at population structure. Once the assessment work was completed, they began tagging scallops. In about 70 tows, 15,000 large scallops were tagged with spaghetti tags and about 7,000 smaller scallops were tagged with glue-on tags. This was done in order to try and get a handle on both the movement of scallops when present in dense assemblages and on scallop growth (as scallop length was measured). They found that there were lots of scallops in the closed areas. The number of animals was impressive. Leavitt also stated that they had tried two side experiments but these did not work out as specimens died as a result of hinge damage that occurred (while dredging) as the animals were landed. R. Taylor, who also went on one of these cruises mentioned that they had counted about 2,000 animals that were about 7-8 mm in size in a 5 minute tow at 4 knots. This was a small sample but they only encountered about 1 adult in 4 tows (500 sq. miles). This size is generally not seen 1st year class, Taylor reiterated that no one should be allowed to harvest in that area since there doesn't seem to be any adults present. J. Dutra pointed out that scallops do move so that it would be difficult to say just how many are in a given area. R. Karney asked about the presence or absence of predators. Leavitt mentioned that predators seemed to be in low abundance and only saw some starfish and crabs. Taylor said that he only counted 18 surf clams, 12 small crabs and 10 starfish in the tows he saw.

Mr. William Brennan a consultant to the Subcommittee on Aquaculture of the New England Fisheries Management Council (NEFMC) was then introduced. The subcommittee has developed a Plan which has now been approved by the NEFMC. Brennan thanked the SSWG and the Northeastern Regional Aquaculture Center for making it possible for him to attend the meeting. Brennan then presented to the group a brief background on how he had come to be involved with the Council. Brennan mentioned that projects such as the Westport project should be credited for making the Council realize that there is such a thing as aquaculture or mariculture. The Council asked Brennan if he would put together the background of the issues relative to the Council that had to do with the legal authorities that the Council has relative to aquaculture. Also, he was to conduct a review of New England state programs and state involvement with aquaculture. He submitted his report in September of 1995. The Council did not take action on aquaculture for the next couple of years. Brennan made a number of recommendations including that the Council should address issues that are germane to its fishery management role, that it should work with other involved federal agencies to identify and minimize areas of overlap, position itself as a point of contact to provide information and recommendations, and should seek the advice of those already involved in fishing and aquaculture activities. It wasn't until the early Spring of this year that the Council recognized that it was time to get involved even though the original thought that there would be a huge increase in the demand of projects in the EEZ did not materialize. The Council thought that it would be better to not wait until this happened before becoming involved. The Council brought Brennan on to develop the process that the Council would utilize in engaging with other federal agencies. Brennan then informed the group that while he was willing to speak with anyone regarding their questions, Ms. Pat Fiorelli is the key point person with the Council and should be contacted first.

Relative to the proposed Administrative process that was developed and presented to the Council there are 6 premises :

1. Many activities associated with aquaculture cannot be undertaken without modification to certain elements of existing fishery management plans (FMPs). If project elements are in conflict with FMPs, i.e. minimum fish size restrictions, the Council will be called upon to amend one or more FMPs. The Westport Project is a perfect example of that.

2. With respect to EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone) based aquaculture operations, no single Federal agency has been delegated overall responsibility to administer aquaculture for purposes of permitting.

3. No federal agency has the legal authority to convey proprietary rights to the ocean bottom or water column for the purposes of aquaculture. (For aquaculturists, the inability to secure specific rights can be a deterrent for potential investors)

4. The advent of proposals to undertake aquaculture projects in the EEZ raises a number of issues which break along many lines. The preemption of bottom and the privatization of public resources are issues which generate significant controversy. The allocation of space continues to be an unsettled end and often contentious issue.

5. A permit required under Section 10 of the Rivers and Harbors Act of the Army Corps of Engineers (COE) is the most extensive of hurdle of all, therefore the COE is the de facto lead agency. However the COE and other agencies like the Fisheries Service are not particularly experienced in address competing use or allocation of space issues relative to the EEZ.

6. Should the Council decide to assume a facilitating role, and because the Council is a quasi- federal agency, some process must be established for the council to coordinate, oversee, and evaluate projects. It is argued that the Council has the responsibility to engage with the issue of aquaculture and that an avocation of this responsibility eliminates the Council as a forum in which to debate the potential impacts of proposed aquaculture projects. This is the basis of the aquaculture policy.

The allocation of space debate is a major issue. The preferred management approach to minimize the burden on the Council is through the development of an "over-arching" FMP which could be done in a comprehensive way. Unfortunately that process is not allowed under the Magnuson Act which prohibits the development of FMPs principally for administrative or process-orientated purposes. Because aquaculture is not considered a fishery per se, this would cause problems with including it in an FMP. If an overall Plan was developed, aquaculture could be included without having to write new amendments each time a project was proposed. All of the agencies involved recognized that we couldn't be overly cumbersome but it was agreed that we would each issue separate permit/leases. It was also realized that all of those aspects were similar so there was no reason to conduct separate evaluations and have separate applications. A comprehensive application was developed in Maine. The utilization of a pre-application phase was initiated in order to identify potential problems BEFORE instigating an actual project and finding problems later on. Once an application has been submitted, a time frame is initiated. It is difficult to deal with issue in a 'learning" way. If you can identify up front what the potential issue(s) are, many can be resolved in advance. Each agency is obliged to administer separate authority, these issues should be addressed early on. The Aquaculture Committee is now formulating its advisory committee with input/oversight with people that are involved with these issues.

Phase 1:
Element: simplified proposal to the agencies i.e. Who, what, where, to determine any additional information needed. The goal is to provide agencies with a general overview of the proposed project that is simple and straightforward and identifies potential issues. This agreement can be done in an informal arrangement with the Federal agencies involved to facilitate the process.

Coordination: available from any of the involved agencies, once proposal received, assume a coordinating role for interagency. If additional information was identified as being required by any agency, it was up to that agency to gather the necessary information. A notice of the proposal should be sent out to solicit the next element, a public meeting. The COE and EPA have indicated that, depending on the nature of the public meeting held, it could meet their needs of having a public meeting held on the issue. (this would help reduce the number of times the investigators need to present their information) A public hearing would be moderated by the Council. Following the public meetings, the Aquaculture Committee would work with the project investigators on those issues that the Council has identified as germane. This review process is to try to identify issues that should and can be addressed to make the project more favorable. The Council would forward its findings to other permitting agencies. A formal application would then go out to the other agencies and the application process could begin. A lot of the potential issues would have been both identified and addressed already, so this should help speed up the application/permitting process and avoid future problems from occurring down the line. The Council is required to open up every existing Fisheries Management Act. What is being proposed is that "boiler plate" language should be created then inserted, where appropriate, as each FMA is opened up.

There is a lot of discussion at the NEFMC that there is so much interaction between the various fisheries, there should be one comprehensive Management Plan rather than have one separate plan per species. Aquaculture could then simply be a section of this comprehensive plan. It is not sure as of yet if this is what will be chosen by the Council. This is important in that is finally being acknowledging that aquaculture does indeed exist. The second action was a motion that the council instigate "a framework" but it isn't clear when the Council will be working on this Forest asked how much review/legal analysis has gone into including aquaculture in the formal definition of fishing ? Brennan's reply was that since we are talking about activity in EEZ which has not been litigated, it hasn't really been decided. At this point it is the opinion of NOAA and the National Justice Department that aquaculture is considered a fishing activity under the Magnuson Act and other legislation. However, until someone brings this to the courts it won't be formally decided. Copies of the letter by NOAA is available in Brennan's report Forest next asked what the next step should be if the SSWG was interested in giving assistance to the Council as a group, i.e. should we invite them to meetings, write a letter, etc. One direct way is that members of the newly formed advisory group are members of the SSWG (i.e. Ron Smolowitz). R. Smolowitz suggested drafting the Amendment to the Scallop group. Brennan suggested even thinking more broadly when doing this so as to come up with some of the boilerplate language would help aquaculture as a whole.

R. Smolowitz Update on Westport Project The Final permits were approved 2/13/97 and the group was then supposed to be issued an "allowed gear" permit. They currently have their experimental fishing permit and have started looking for seed beds to harvest. Seed doesn't really show up until late April. In May they went out with a line dredge spending 6 hours on the site, harvesting about 40,000 scallops (mean size of 75mm). These were transported to the site and dumped in an area of about 1 acre in size. They tagged about 300 - 500 scallops in different ways. They also got some 1 inch vinyl-coated wire, donated by Riverdale Mills and had some New Bedford lobstermen donate some of their time building cages. We built 48 cages measuring 3 foot by 4 foot by 18 inches high and put in 2 shelves. Then they found some seed beds in the northeast area of the site. A fundamental question is how to keep those cages out there. Lobstermen suggested using 75 pound mushroom anchors. They are currently using cages weighted with bricks but may develop a summer-winter strategy. They have planted seed on all 3 levels of the cages and have plans in the work for a 10 lantern net rig by FUKUI. For the larger cages, Cliff Goudey has a design being finalized.

They also towed a camera on the bottom to get footage but need to build a camera sled. There seem to be 2 problem areas: they have asked for a time extension because they weren't able to get out to the sitre until late February but NMFS seems to be dragging its feet. The other thing is that there seems to be some really interesting fundamental biological question concerning the interrelationship between sand dollars and starfish. Smolowitz tried to talk the NMFS scientists into examining this question on the site but they don't appear to have any interest. Smolowitz also suggested we should work on a proposed amendment to the scallop plan i.e. for experimental fishing by coming up with a scallop aquaculture permit. He also feels the site should become a permanent research site.

Taylor then updated the SSWG on activities in the Gloucester Area. His project has 3 main aspect to it. One is to take the small scallops that are routinely caught in the gear and putting them into small cages. They did purchase seed and put it into an abandonded salmon farm in Eastport as a control in a different environment to compare growth rates. A second aspect of the research is spat collection and the third involves bottom characterization to identify future sites for growout using side scan data from the US Geological Survey. They were going to use small scallops. At that time (1995) there was a large year class, but the 3.5 inch rings currently used do not maintain many scallops at all, so there's no possible way to retain large volumes of small scallops. Taylor said that they found high initial mortalities of dredged scallops (no matter how careful they were), about 40 percent mortality from probably either siltation or sand on the gill structure behind the rings. All of the survivors did show growth within the first 2 or 3 weeks. Since that time they have hauled the survivors repeatedly. Each time the scallops throw a check so you could more or less tell how many times they had been hauled by counting the checks. This repeated hauling severely stresses them so that it is not what you would do to animals that you'd want to harvest. One interesting note is that although the shell size is small and the shells themselves show little growth, the meat size is twice that of what you'd expect. The more players, the more success we will have. They have 2000 more collectors to put out and will continue the growth rate plans. We need to try to force the issues of having designated grow out areas, and need a dependable source of small quantities of seed. The interaction between species is one part of a long process of developing research goals. Harrison asked whether they were restricted in bringing in seed from other areas? Taylor replied no. Dutra mentioned that seed could be imported but there are lots of permits to go through which makes it very expensive. An important thing to note is that the way in which shipments are packed and shipped can make a huge difference in survival.

Scott Soares brought the group up to speed on current state issues and projects. There are 4 pieces of legislation involving aquaculture now, 3 by the Senate and 1 by the House.

S1083: An Act to Enhance Aquaculture in the Commonwealth This establishes mapping systems through Salem State and UMass Dartmouth using GPS and GIS to map aquaculture zones.

S1726: An Act Providing for the Orderly Growth of the Aquaculture Industry in Wellfleet This put the onus of property ownership on upland owners rather than on shellfish aquaculturists in the tidal and subtidal areas in Wellfleet Harbor.

H4414: An Act to Provide for the Development of Aquaculture in the Commonwealth This is the 3rd time this has been submitted. This sets up an Aquaculture Advisory Board to be chaired by the Commissioner of the Department of Food and Agriculture. it also identifies the development of aquaculture as the responsibility of the Department of Food and Agriculture.

The FY98 budget about $1.18 million identified for aquaculture projects. As far as UMass Dartmouth/ Center for Marine Sciences and Technology (CMAST) is concerned Soares is not sure where they are at this point as Bob Miller, assistant director has resigned and no new person has been identified at this point in time. The Education Department has given around $1 million to Salem State College for the development of their aquaculture program, the Northeastern Massachusetts Aquaculture Center (NEMAC). Soares hopes to have a Request for Proposal out some time soon, and has sent about 300 letters to industry asking for feedback. The monies must be used by the end of July 98. Dutra asked if Soares was aware that the DMF are thinking of setting up fixed gear zones (conflict between lobstermen and fixed gear) and hopes they will look at aquaculture before they firm up any decisions. Soares said he would will bring this up with Mike Hickey at a meeting later today. Taylor brought up that not only is there the territoriality of lobstermen using fixed gear themselves but also see other fixed gear as a threat (won't just be an issue between fixed versus mobile gear). Garrison then discussed the sea scallop hatchery project that will be devoting the entire hatchery operation to produce sea scallop. They have found that bay scallops are very delicate animals and should just be handled once if possible. Their anchoring system for Nantucket harbor involved using helix anchors. They are making advances on how deep they can be anchored can attach any type of cage you want The seed produced will be distributed to 4 outfits: Smolowitz, Dutra, Karney, and a fourth.

Leavitt mentioned another Course for Regulators that is being put together. More information will follow as it is ready. They have proposed for 2 consecutive years of courses are waiting to hear. Harrison mentioned that the Northeastern Regional Aquaculture Center has a brand new 30 minute video, Northeastern Aquaculture - Farming the Waters which profiles aquaculture operations in the northeastern region. It will be made available through aquaculture extension agents, aquaculture association contacts, etc.

Next Meeting: October 30th, 1997 Cape Cod Economic Development Council, Hyannis, MA

minutes prepared by Chrystal Mancuso

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