|
UNH aquaculture research spawns new technology
Nicholas Brown
With global fish stocks decreasing and the global human population increasing, we have a growing environmental and economic problem affecting both small coastal communities and the world's oceans.
Solutions may come from technologies developed in the cold, gray waters just off-shore from the mouth of the Piscataqua River. A large submersible fish pen in the shape of geodesic sphere called an AquaPod was towed out to moorings one mile south of the Isles of Shoals this week to be tested by the University of New Hampshire's Open Ocean Aquaculture (OOA) Project. The AquaPod will be moored beside two older fish pens used to study methods to farm fish in the open ocean.
Despite drastic reductions in the allowable catch for New England's commercial fishing fleet during the last decade, scientists remain deeply concerned about stock depletions of many important species. Cod has been a dietary staple in the Western World for centuries and has been under tremendous pressure for just as long. According Dr. Richard Langan, director of the Cooperative Institute for New England Mariculture and Fisheries (CINEMAR) at UNH, the cod catch during the last three years is off 21 percent in the Gulf of Maine and 26 percent at the once-rich fishing grounds of George's Bank, southeast of Massachusetts.
"We don't understand it all," said Dr. Langan, "but we can't expect large increases (in fish stocks)." We can expect more consumers and more consequences, however.
Because of continued pressure on many fish populations worldwide, fish-farming is a rapidly growing industry - a staggering 40 percent of seafood around the world is farmed, according Dr. Langan. China leads in percentages of farmed fish. The United States lags far behind other developed countries with just 9 percent of harvested seafood coming from aquaculture. At the same time, the United States has a huge seafood trade deficit. We import 70 percent of our seafood from Norway, South America, and Asia. Nearly half of this amount is farm-raised.
Because of both proximity and fortuitous funding opportunities, UNH is now a leading institution in the field of aquaculture both in the United States and internationally. It became partners with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in 1997 and benefited from Sen. (N.H.) Judd Greg's chairmanship of appropriations at the Commerce, Justice and State (now, Science) Committee.
"We have always taken it (our work) very seriously," said Dr. Langan, once a commercial fisherman himself, "to advance the mission of that agency (NOAA)."
The idea behind spending our tax dollars to fund an institute such as CINEMAR and a project within it like OOA is to develop technologies that will be passed on to private sector businesses. Research on mussel farming by UNH has already seeded several advances in shellfish farming, a more well-established and well-developed aspect of aquaculture than fin-fish farming.
Farming fish, rather than mussels or oysters, comes with unique challenges and has become a "hot-button issue," according to Dr. Langan. Typically, detractors come from the environmental camp, the residential camp, and from the traditional commercial harvester.
Some critics object to fish-farming on aesthetic grounds. A waterfront homeowner on a quite cove in Downeast Maine, for example, may object to the sight of buoys and boats and the circus-ring-sized circles where one type of pen breaks the water's surface.
Some environmental groups raise concerns about the effects a large scale fish-farm might have on its surrounding ecosystem, particularly when that farm is in shallow water and in a sheltered embayment where water flow is restricted.
And some net-fishing harvesters object to the very idea of fish-farming because of competition and regulatory issues. Who owns the ocean? How can even a small piece of sea-bed be leased for a mooring grid for fish pens, for example?
Dr. Langen and Michael Chambers, project manager for OOA, both see regulatory challenges as significant in the development of aquaculture as an industry. Permitting is a murky process.
"It's hard to know who to talk to for a permit now," said Dr. Langen.
"But there is legislation before Congress right now that would provide a better framework."
Open ocean fish-farming solves several of the "hot-button issues." Because the pens are offshore and submerged, visual pollution is mitigated. In OOA's case, the species being farmed are open-ocean fish - cod, haddock, and halibut - and are much less stressed when in their natural environment than when in waters closer to shore for the convenience of the farmers.
"There's lots of space out there," said Dr. Langan. "How do we use it to benefit society?"
But the open ocean environment and the submerged fish pens of UNH's OOA are expensive and hard work to operate. Boats of substantial size and lots of scuba diving are required to feed and monitor fish and gear.
"Our safety requirements are even stricter than OSHA's," said Dr. Langan.
"The first phase of the work was to prove the concept," said Michael Chambers. "Now we need to find ways to make it user-friendly, more doable, while looking for the best, most environmentally friendly possible way to do it."
Given what much of my own tax dollars are probably going toward, I'm glad that at least some of them are going to sea.
Nicholas Brown is a freelance journalist, boat builder, surfer and Navy veteran who lives in Eliot, Maine. He can be reached by e-mail at features@seacoastonline.com.
Nicholas Brown is a freelance journalist, boat carpenter, and Navy veteran who lives in Eliott, Maine. he can be reached by e-mail at features@seacoastonline.com
| 
