Sea Scallop Workshop
November 17, 1995
Cape Cod Economic Development Council
480 Barnstable Rd.
Hyannis, MA

Present: Tom Alden, Rick Baird, Leo Byrnes, Michael Collins, Dennis Correia, Judy Dutra, Pat Eldridge (Sen. Raushenbauch's Office), Harlyn Halvorson, Rick Karney, Alan Kurzarian, Dale Leavitt, John O'Brien, Robert Plant, Suzan Petersen, Ken Riaf, Mark Sherman, Ron Smolowitz, Paul Somerville, Richard Taylor, Rick York.

Mr. John O'Brien extended greetings and commented that our Blueprint Report was now available. He noted that a number of the aquaculturists were pessimistic, and reminded them that the issues are complex and that this is a slow process. He urged the group to retain a positive attitude.

Dr. Halvorson: Conflicts arose with other meetings that limited attendance today. A number of members called to express their regrets.
o Executive summaries of the "Massachusetts White Paper and Strategic Plan" are available through Susan Snow-Cotter. This report was submitted to the Governor on Oct. 4th. At the national level a parallel re-ananlysis is underway.
o The regulatory reforms appear to be the most likely to be successful.
o The State Plan is being sent out for review and comment.

He stressed that it is important for the Sea Scallop Working Group to maintain a highly focused program.

Richard Taylor: pointed out that the process is slow, but a number of events have taken place in the last several years which are important events in developing sea scallop aquaculture in Massachusetts.
o Carl Rask, et al. produced a Cape Cod Resource strategic plan "Aquaculture in Massachusetts:
A strategic plan for industry growth and job creation".
o The Sea Scallop Working Group has been formed and active.
o NMFS Fig. Grants for aquaculture including sea scallops.
o New England Fisheries Management Council has expressed interest.
o Increases occur in permitting, which may result in streamlining.
o The number of people working on aquaculture has been enormous.
o The new industry for sea scallop is based on a hatchery; we need to move in this direction. A hatchery is already in production. This is an expensive proposition which has been helped by FIG grants.
o The industry has received from state senators and will continue to need help from the state legislation.

There is a clear record of progress.
o He showed a map of Cape Ann which identified important shellfish growing sites. He identified an area within 3 miles to be used on a research basis (C, N, O, and bottom biota). A search will be made for an area with the best growth rates. The approval for Shellwagon was the first nongovernmental permit given. However one condition was that nothing grown here could be sold. The sittings in Westport and in Maine were noted. He emphasized the need to interact with others in order to evolve areas and gear types for different types of boat operations?
o When the Emerson Lab in Gloucester was closed, he found in the discard pile a paper from December, 1946 which talks about basic conflict between harvest taking of fisherman and shellfish aquaculture grow-outs. This 50 year old dispute must be resolved if we want to increase quantity. He pointed out that hatcheries would reduce competition between fishermen, be closer to home, and use less time and energy. Also there were restrictions put on the type of gear that could be used. We need to be better connected, improve our technology and prove or disprove the economics of this industry.

Ron Smolowitz: was more optimistic on how far we are moving along on aquaculture projects. There are now more projects underway than there was four years ago when suggestions for sea scallop aquaculture were discouraged. At present there are projects worth directly or indirectly $2 million underway for sea scallop aquaculture. At present there are 8 projects approved for sea scallop aquaculture in both federal and state waters. Our offshore project in federal waters has been funded for a total of $169 thousand. Army Corps of Engineers permit for this is now in hand. The largest "road block" remains the issue of users. We are dealing at this moment in federal waters and have been dealing with councils. This is a draft amendment to the sea scallop management plan. The scallop committee approved it last week for public hearing. The full council meets on December 12 and 14th. One or two public hearings will be held on Cape and New Bedford, then it goes back to the full council (March), and if approved to NMFS for its approval. This is the first lease in Fed. waters. The council system, despite our difficulties, is still the best way for us to get out in Federal waters. It is the least cumbersome. The council is seriously considering how to permit aquaculture to take place. Because there is no means to allow this to take place, we had to go through the process of a full amendment , having first gone through all subcommittees.

As far as our project is concerned we are beginning to get underway. MIT has an autonomous underwater vehicle which we will use on the first of December to inspect the site. We have 8 scallop companies which will be cooperating. On the project already lined up are Jim Spault's operation out of Hyannis, the Bragdons out of Dennisport, and Danny Cone out of Cape Maine, Jew Jersey. One of the problems is getting small scallops to stock the site. The problem is pretty simple. The scallop industry has 3 1/4" rings on their dredges and they are going to be going up to nets to 3 1/2" rings. Consequently they are all cheating. They are basically lining their dredges. So we are not achieving anything regarding scallop selectivity. NMFS and he council refuse to recognize this and are not going into ports to take measurements. A 3 1/2 ring is not going to retain small scallops. We are not going to be able to get the small scallops using this gear. How is the industry going to handle this? Danny Cohen has net boats which can catch small scallops.

It is important that everyone here attend the public hearing or make their opinions either in person or in writing. The opposition is very small but they are very vocal. We need to make sure that the public hearings are held. The opposition comes from one or two draggers that use this area and some Vineyard lobstermen. This area does not exclude lobster or ground fish. Everything on the project is on public record. We have money in the project for hiring two boats (lobster) from the vineyard to do work offshore working the scallop cages. Maybe some SCUBA operations will also to be conducted way offshore. This is a test site (nine square miles) for research purposes - another sites further off shore would be considered for commercial purposes. An offshore industry I believe would work in a more cooperative manner; In New Zealand, for example, they seed the area of almost 9 thous. acres as a community (7 - 8 vessels); a couple of vessels harvest, and everyone shares the harvest

Judy Dutra: gave us an update on two projects.
The first is the Truro Aquaculture Project by David and Judy Dutra. They are still waiting for general permit from Army Corps of Engineers. The Army Corps wrote a letter saying that as far as bottom culture concerned, everything is all right. Mr. Kelley said that held up at NMFS. A Right Whale recovery team now has to give comments. They didn't want a 3/8" wire connected cages along the bottom float that doesn't float! This should not be a problem. This is being reviewed by a group of lawyers. A second proposal, which does not have suspended cages, is in Washington also being reviewed. We were told in July this would be approved in September - in September - Oct. etc.
We are still optimistic, no one seems to have a problem with this.

In the second project, the Town of Truro this year accepted seed spat from Martha's Vineyard Hatchery in July. David and I on behalf of the Town of Truro have been taking care of their scallops. In the last few months they have gone from larvae to sea scallops up to one inch across. We now have 11 cages with 15 shelves each; inside there are plastic bags which we keep changing. We are waiting for the general permit at which time the town will turn it over the Truro Aquaculture Project. We are working with Rick Karney's crew. We are going to be a small scale-for-profit business. We are willing to share all the information and the research with anyone. We are very optimistic. Once the financial viability is demonstrated, many will want to join this venture. Fishermen we have met would not have the patience or the know-how to get this far, they would quit. These projects will lead the way for others to come along. Our other concern is the keeping the infrastructure. If they close down the fisheries, as Amendment 7 is talking about this; we will need a new way of marketing. Our infrastructure will be lost and we will lose our vessels. We are now just waiting for the Army Corps of Engineering general permit. They are waiting for Bureau of Endangered Species to make their ruling, Ron Smolowitz stated "all lines of problems go back to this Marine Mammal Protection Act, it is the biggest obstacle". The wording needs to be changed.

Rick Karney: reminded us that when we met here a year ago that he had just received his $36,000 FIG grant to adapt the methods they had previously used for growing bay scallops to grow sea scallops. They have been successful in their first spawning. This was illustrated with a slide show. Sea scallops are much more slowly growing animal than bay scallops. They obtained seven million eggs from one female. These animals require quite a lot of space and require different water temperatures for algae to grow. Sea scallops can grow at 24 degrees, but algae do not grow at lower than 17 degrees. They separated the scallops from algae to keep the algae warmer. The scallops were fed on one species of algae with some background algae from water filtration. They drained water every other day and the scallop were fed every day. It took 40 days to set. By day 28 there were first pediveligers totaling 1,350,000. These grew between 13 and 17 degrees, but were stressed at 17 degrees. For pediveligers, water was heated to 15 degrees, circulated, and food added. They did lose some animals at first. They found that sieves have to be washed regularly and dried. They were separated by size by day 50. By day 67 they were transferred onto a 2u mesh. They started then to eat algae from the water column. No additional food was given after setting. Upwellers were added and the animals seemed to do quite well. Onion bags, were used to move the scallops outside. The animals were up to 7mm at this point. They were sprayed once a week to get rid of biofoulers. Animals that survived were given to people that wanted seed: Westport group headed up by Frank Dutra, Nantucket, and the Truro Aqua. Project. The people taking the animals must have the proper permits. In July the animals very stressed leading to high moralities. They then moved everything to north shore waters, which was the coldest water available, and hung the bags out nearshore in 18-19 degrees temperatures. At this point they contacted growers where shellfish constable can accept the seed for the grower. This was to prevent the animals from dying before the permits could be issued. By 110-115 days they really started to see high mortalities. About 90,000 animals survived. Thus the overall loss was about 80%--"Regulatory Loss". At the end of September they replaced 600 seed per pearl net. On Sept. 29th, 2/3 of what had been moved survived at which time they were moved to Truro. By Nov. 10th, they still doing quite well and had reached 22.4 mm at 264 days from spawning. They concluded that a hatchery end can be done, but the economics of the project are still not clear. Nevertheless this venture has potential.

Dale Leavitt: will highlight the results of our workshop. At that meeting we had technical information on the industry from Canada as well as testimony on local exeperiences on the first day. On the second day the group split up into individual discussion groups that explored important relevant points and came up with a set of recommendations. The full group reassembled to discus these. The final document, Blueprint for Sea Scallop Aquaculture in Massachusets, was developed from this discussion after extensive review. A large nmber of recommendations were made, a few of which are:

1. Regulatory constraints to sea scallop aquaculture

o Charge some individual or entity within the Commonwealth government to act as an advocate for sea scallop aquaculture in dealing with the federal process.

o Provide State funds to the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries and / or the Sea Scallop Working Group to gather and analyze existing and new data to assist in the identification of potential sea scallop aquaculture tracts with federal, state and town jurisdiction.

o Provide adequate funding for legal resources to: clarify the geographic jurisdictions in which local, state. and Federal requirements apply; describe what these legal requirements are; provide guidance on how to meet these requirements; and undertake measures to simplify these requirements;consolidate overlapping review procedures; and revise these requirements, if necessary, without jeopardizing other public concerns, particularly those regarding the environment

2. Site selection for sea scallop aquaculture

o Classify suitability of coastal areas for aquaculture, by using standard methods (such as those provided by the Geographic Information System "GIS").

o Set up a central data depository for informing potential commercial and experimental aquaculturists, under the aegis of a State agency (DMF, CZM).

3. Culture techniques for sea scallop aquaculture

o Support a grow-out demonstration project to compare culture techniques.

4. Supply of seed ('spat') for sea scallop aquaculture

o Support the development of sea scallop hatcheries in New England.

o Promote research to identify optimal sites and time slots to maximize spat collection.

5. Potential environmental impacts on and by aquaculture of sea scallops

o Establish a water quality and shellfish monitoring program at designated aquaculture sites or regions.

6. Economic feasibility of sea scallop aquaculture

o Conduct an economic feasibility study of sea scallop aquaculture in Massachusetts.

o Provide for a model within the sea scallop aquaculture plan for other aquaculture
fisheries within the State through the development of a State Aquaculture consensus
plan.

o Appoint a State Aquaculture Coordinator to coordinate State efforts in regulating aquaculture
and / or to work with the sea scallop industry. This office would provide information,
encourage venture capital to stay in the State, and work with the financial community to
encourage the financing of sea scallop aquaculture projects.

o Fund Small Business Assistance Programs to encourage sea scallop industry growth through the Executive Office of Economic Affairs.

o Establish a revolving loan fund for sea scallop aquaculture start-up capital for projects using proven methods.

7. Provision of information regarding sea scallop aquaculture

o Promote courses in aquaculture at institutions of higher education.

o Encourage State agencies to gather information on scallop culture activities
from other states and other countries.

8. Basic research to support a sea scallop aquaculture industry

o Establish stable long term funding for a Massachusetts Aquaculture Innovation Center, modeled after the Maine Aquaculture Innovation Center.

We now have a concise document which can be widely distributed. Early draft and the final draft were submitted to the State.

Where do we go from here?

The first questioned addressed was the distribution of the Blueprint report. Ron suggested that 50 copies go to the New Bedford Sea Food Coalition. This would make contact with manufacturers, refrigeration industry, hydraulics, and ship supplies. After we could arrange for a meeting with representatives from our working group to provide more information. Other distributions include the Shellfish Association and the Massachusetts Aquaculture Association.

Suzan Peterson raised the question of the structure of our report, and in particular, the lack of an identified lead agency in the state. This led to a long and detailed discussion. Harlyn reported that in the deliberations of the State committees that there was general agreement that promotion of aquaculture would be assigned to the Dept. of Food and Agriculture and that regulations would be assigned to Fisheries. Bill DePaul reported that this was the way hat the State of Virginia handled this. Ron pointed out that the Farm Bureau would like to have a strong statement. The question was raised about the lack of expertise about marine waters in the Dept. of Food and Agriculture. It was agreed that if that Dept. had the funds and the lead assignment that they could contract out to Marine Fisheries. The group agreed that the lead role for "advocacy" or "industry development" be assigned to Food and Agriculture. This position would be expressed in a cover letter to accompany the report. Ron suggested a draft resolution -"We want the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to release __ amounts of funds to the Department of Food and Agriculture to commence work under contract with other state agencies or outside contractors to define aquaculture zones or to hire an aquaculture advocate to work with industry and the Federal government". We further urge all our supporting organizations to endorse this resolution. A drafting committee of Harlyn Halvorson, Ron Somolowitz and Alan Kuzurian was selected to prepare this letter. (See Appendix I).

It was agreed to meet in one month to continue our deliberations.

Harlyn Halvorson
12/10/95